The vastness of eternity
by neverland300690
Summary: Cassandra had once told her that around every man and woman a prophecy was woven, that everyone had a destiny and none could escape it... But could they change it? Could men mold their own destiny? - Briseis came to find out that men could do all they could, until their destiny was revealed.
1. The temple

AN: This is a collenction of moments between Achilles and Briseis, some of the movie and others my own  
(The first four chapters are my retelling of scenes in the movie; from **chapter 5 - In the night **and on, the narration is my own , including this chapter). I tried to keep the canon dialogue intact, for the most part.  
I do hope you like this!

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!  
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.  
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!  
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;"  
― Alexander Pope, _Eloisa to Abelard _

**THE TEMPLE **

She heard it when the horns sounded. One would have thought she would have ran away, but she knew her land, she knew how long it took to run - or even ride - from the temple to the walls of the castle. She would never make it in time.

She had never seen the true face of war, but she knew of it. Had heard the horror stories of men throwing children from city walls when they invaded. Heard many more things she preferred not to think about, but that haunted her dreams none the less. No one understood why she should think of that so much… and Briseies understood no one when they told her not to worry about such bloody things.

Why should she not worry. They lived with war every day. They had many enemies and were attacked by armies ever few years.

Her city had never known true war, not for many years now, but they lived under its shadow and Briseis had been afraid of it ever since… ever since Cassandra had spoken to her when they were but little girls and terrified her (as she terrified everyone else)

Briseies had not believed her cousin… but she was afraid none the less.

Even when Hector told her about the Spartan wars, about the sieges, the strategies and reasons behind them, he had never given her the cruelty. Never described the blood, the iron, the death in the air. Her cousin was good man, he did not relish in the blood he spilled. He did not speak of it.

Everything horrible that Briseies knew of war, she had learned from his silences.

So why did she not run? Why did she not hide in the woods so close to the beach, follow them up the mountain and try to enter Troy from the northern gates? She could have.

Yes, she could have, but that would not have been very smart. She knew that the first thing the Greeks would go to were the woods, to build their camps – she had grown around the greatest military strategists of Troy, after all. She knew that the Greeks would eviscerate the beautiful forests at the city's doorstep, to make their barracks.

The surest way to die was running in those woods. Either by a Greek sword or by wild beasts.

_That_ is why she hid.

Or was hidden. The priests hid her under a hidden compartment of stone, behind Apollo's statue, but neither she nor the priests that hid her had any idea what would come to pass. They had thought that the Greeks, no matter how barbarous, would not desecrate holy ground.

They had been wrong.

The trembling hands tightly pressed on ears to muffle the sounds of death did nothing for her. Briseis still heard everything. She heard her mentors die: good men, proud men, devoted or proud - they all perished alike. Brave soldiers died for their city while she hid and trembled, doing nothing more than hearing them scream and moan out of this life.

Never in her short life had she felt a lesser being.

By the time it was over, she was paralyzed. She was not even there.

The soldiers had started looting, making noise, destroying. No sense or reason. Nothing was theirs here, they owned not anything… perhaps that was why they destroyed all they fell upon with such pleasure. The laws of war said that that very beach would belong to the Greek in the afternoon, because they _took_ it so now they owned it. Because they wet it's sand with Trojan blood and they were the ones left standing. It did not matter to war that they only took to destroy, that they held only hatred for this land.

They _must_ hate Troy and the Trojans, Briseis remembers thinking, otherwise how could they kill so fiercely… but still, they were willing to die to own them. To possess them.

What had brought all these men at their shores? What was it that made men so bloodthirsty?

_Why..._

Briseies could not understand. She could not comprehend the mind of a killer...

When the rock stone that covered her hiding place was lifted, she only stared at the face of the soldier in front of her blankly. She could not feel her legs, her arms. She could not even think.

She did not hear what was said as raw hands pulled her out, restrained her. She spoke several languages, Greek only one of them... but that had nothing to do with her inability to understand the soldiers. She could not hear them, because the screams of men dying were still bantering her ears. She could not feel their hands bruising her- she was numb from head to toe, truck dumb and deaf and blind. The possibility of death tinkled her, but she could not gather enough sense to be afraid.

Her life was at its end and Briseis finally shocked herself into reality. The present time - where she was, what was happening to her - started to become clearer. The reality of her situation pierced her like tiny needles, pushing deeper and deeper into her skin with every breath.

She started to see the soldiers now, and saw them she did. The vibrant read splattering their armors, the fierce sight they made with their helmets… they were visions from her nightmares.

Now she knew _why_ her friends considered her so very strange for ever wondering what war would be like. She knew why her cousin Hector never really wanted to speak of it.

War could not be told.

Was, like bone-chilling terror, could only be felt. And she was feeling it now.

Her breathing sped up as reality became awake, as she faded out of her numbness.

Was this war? Was this what hid in Hector's silences?

The soldiers spoke directly the Briseis, but she only stared at them trying to hold back tears, trying to retain some of what she was in the way she stood straight, now bawling, not begging. She did not possess nightmares so terrible as to know exactly what would happen, but she knew it would be a fate worse than burning.

She was a captive now.

_Welcome Briseis, to war._


	2. Achilles

"A warrior acknowledges his pain but he doesn't indulge in it.  
The mood of the warrior who enters into the unknown is not one of  
sadness; on the contrary, he's joyful because he feels humbled by  
his great fortune, confident that his spirit is impeccable, and  
above all, fully aware of his efficiency. A warrior's joyfulness  
comes from having accepted his fate, and from having truthfully  
assessed what lies ahead of him."  
― Don Juan Matus

**ACHILLES**

The tent was wide and dark. No rugs had been laid down yet, Briseis was sitting on sand… as was the rest of the plunder from the temple where she'd served: gold chalices, black amphorae, woven tapestries, goatskins filled with sacred wine.

Voices of the men in the camp carried inside the tent and she tried to ignore them, tried to not to despair even thought her heart had been beating double its pace for hours now, even thought she felt as if her stomach had fallen through her, to her feet.

She was afraid, she admitted it. She was terrified.

But she was still herself. And the anger burned there in her chest, like a lifeline. Many things she had done before this moment seemed silly to her now, many others were cherished memories. No one had ever told her she was brave, but she knew she was fierce in her own right: she'd rather die (which she soon would, she was sure) than give these brutes the pleasure of making her forget all she had been before this day and beg.

She would not _surrender_ anything, not her tears, or her dignity, or her honor. They would surely take her life, and more, but they would have to pry all of it from her bleeding broken fingers. She would make them work hard, only so that she could say in the plains of the underworld, that she had been able to be Briseis till the end.

She told herself that, even though all the while at the back of her head a voice said _' …who would care? What would it matter? You'll end up dead on the flood regardless…_'

Or even _'…why should you live when countless others already lay dying? Is your life more precious than those who gave theirs to protect your city? Is it?'_

That was the voice tainted with the screams of the dead, of those men she had seen this morning, as swords ran them through again and again and again... It was the voice of death that had taken root inside her, infecting her thoughts with its poisonous tentacles, darkness that threatened to overwhelm her.

How she was holding on to her sanity was a miracle.

When she felt the voices come close then any others had ever come before she stopped breathing, her heart skipping, no matter how much she told herself to stay brave and strong. She could not ignore her fear. It was natural to be afraid. But she could embrace it.

"…The men found her in the temple." A man said, his Greek was raw around the edges, spoke with an accent. He was not Greek – and Briseis recognized that accent. He had ordered her to be taken to '_their lord'_.

She winced at his mention of the temple. At how nonchalant his tone was, after he had slain all those unarmed men. Servants of the gods – the same gods he worshiped, and they had slain them without mercy.

And that soldier mentioned it, as if it was just another task on his day.

_Killers_…

"We thought she would… amuse you."

He sounded very amused himself for that matter, and at his tone Briseies finally felt herself scowl. A deep cold gripped her insides, freezing her feelings, even her fear. She was made of stone now.

Briseis did not turn to see the man she was supposed to belong to now.

_Achilles_...

Everywhere, his name was half whispered, as if he were a god. Even she had heard of him. It seemed so unfair that she should not only be captured, but also a captive of the greatest enemy her city had besides the king leading the army… it seemed too much of wretched luck for one person. Yet there she was, bound at his feet.

How she hated him. without even knowing him, she hated him.

Achilles…

Was she supposed to tremble? Fear him blindly as all others did? Was he going to be cruel?

He was a man whose life was circled merely on killing. Who had a taste for it, a gift for it.

_Of course_ he would be cruel…

Briseis could not see him, but knew he was there, because she kept hearing him move about, hearing his breath. She had not seen the way he paused when his eyes first laid on her. Her eyes stared, unseeing, at the far end of the tent and she was determined not to give him anything, not even a glance from her eyes. She heard water splashing, leather against metal and flesh as he removed the armor that was surely coated in the blood of her countrymen.

Even the rage that flooded her veins was ice cold.

"What's your name?"

His voice was low, deep and calm. He sounded even a bit worn. Tired from all the killing he has done this morning. How many of her people had died by his hands, just today? How many more he would kill?

Many, surely, even if only haft of what was known of him was true.

But she does not miss the tone of his vocie, the careless, almost redundant way of his speech. He sounds almost bored and she knows that this is not the first time he has done this. He has spoken, probably those exact words, to some other girl tied by his bed. Many, perhaps.

_Killer_, she spits out in her mind, wishing to bite him, bloody him.

She turned to glare at him, it was instinctual, uncontrollable, but then she remembered she had to be cold, hard as stone. She turned back around and stared at the other side of the tent, refusing him. She could still hear him behind her. She could feel him, the danger of him and everything he entails.

But it will not come to that, she promises herself. _No, you'll be brave now, and it will not have to come to that._

"Did you not hear me?" he persists in the same jaded tone, and the wave of irritation that overcomes her is familiar. No one but her inner family would ever dare repeat a questing at her if she did not answer the firs time... but here she was not the princess of Troy any more.

"You killed Apollo's priests." She accuses and her voice comes more plaintive than she would have liked.

"I've killed men in 5 countries, but never a priest." he spits the last word out with tired impatience.

As if the fact that, out of the hordes he has murdered, he has never killed a servant of the gods matters to tip the scales. As if it makes him better than those men who did.

"Then you men did." She snaps at him, turning to look at him and seeing more then she would have wished. She turns her eyes away, disgusted by the sight of him and his bestial ways.

"The son god will have his vengeance." she says finally, the distain and hatred filling her until she had no trouble getting them out, until she needn't pretend anymore.

"What's he waiting for?" He asked conversationally, as if he found nothing strange at all with her and the venom she was spitting at him as if she was the master and he the captive.

"The right time to strike!" She hissed, glaring at him.

The water made ripples as he bathed, and as he spoke, all she could deduce by his tone was that he was more taken by his bath and he was by her insolence.

"His priests are dead, his acolyte's a captive... I think your god is afraid of me." he stated, though it sounded more like a mocking to provoke her, rather than something he really believed in.

She was appalled by his blunt blasphemy, scorned him for his arrogance. Almost pitied him for his ignorance.

"_Afraid_? Apollo is master of the sun! He fears _nothing_."

"Then where is he?" And this time, it seemed that her insistence on the matter seemed to get to him more than her refusal to submit.

"...and you're nothing but a killer! You wouldn't know anything about the gods." She shouted at his face as loud as she dared and with as much disgust as she could. It was enough to make any other man raise a hand against her for impudence. And yet, his only response was a lazy splash of water her way. She felt the trickles land on the back of her head and they surprised her – and reminded her of the petulance of a child.

She had expected a blade… and he splashed her with his bath water.

"You haven't seen twenty summers and you think you know my heart? I know more about the gods that your priests could ever teach you. I've _seen_ them." He said just as calmly as he had begun and with such conviction that it made her hesitate for a moment, before she completely dismissed him.

She believe what she said: he was nothing but a killer in her eyes. No man who lived to kill, who desecrated holy ground and killed defenseless men could ever know what it mean to devote oneself to peace and worship of something higher, purer.

He was not worthy of her attention.

She felt him come closer to her, deliberate steps until he was a mere feet away from her, looking down at her, completely shameless about his state of undress in front of her.

_Beast_… she thought as she stared straight ahead, doing her best to freeze him out of her head, his words out of her brain.

Up close his odor was strong and it made her gag, reminding her too much of the temple where she had seen the priests die. For a moment, the smell of sweat, blood, leather and dirt surrounded her and was back in her hiding spot, watching and listening to death as it ate up the place where she had once found peace.

War had turned her safe harbor into a nightmare...

She felt like she could scream and tear at him with her nails and teeth, but she stayed very still, trying not even to breathe to loudly.

"You're royalty, aren't you?" He asked but his tone was so flat that he did not need her to confirm, even if she had been willing to answer. He thought back at her manner of speech, at her looks full of scorn and righteous anger, looking down her nose at him even though she was the one bound by her wrist and admits the spoils of war. Having royal blood did not make you immune to fear, he knew that – but this little thing at his feet was also a proud little thing – she scorned him and she was making to attempt to hide it. Even the cadence of her Greek was what gave her origins away: it was too well-spoken, too polished. Not even his own Greek, which he had been born speaking, was as refined as hers.

"You've spent years talking down to men." He added, more for his own benefit then for hers, as if he was talking to himself as he inspected her.

The girl did not flinch when she felt his hand come down and catch a lock of her hair in his fingers, feeling the soft texture of it. Briseis expected he would pull it out, but he did not. She shivered when she felt him smell that lock of hair and put it back down as he looked at her.

"You must be royalty." He said again, low and convinced.

Briseis felt her heart speed up… Jasminein her hair, the scents of the rich oils of her skin. Could he tell her apart from dozens other aristocratic maidens that enjoyed those luxuries? No. He was just guessing. And her stone face gave nothing away. Having him know that she was of the royal family would not bode well for her. She did not want to be a liability to her city before the war even started.

"What's your name?" He asked again, and this time it was not a careless afterthought. This time it was a question - he expected an answer as he looked down at her. Briseies felt like one of the exotic birds that her friends liked to keep in golden cages.

Except she knew this was no golden cage.

This was a gutter.

She didn't answer. With cold stoicism, she stared straight ahead, even as he waited. Her silence ought to provoke him. She had seen men much more refined than him, much more courtly, driven into rages because they thought they were being ignored. Men with inflated sense of self could not stand to be shunned. He would demand attention.

But he disappointed again.

He simply sighed and came down to her level, crouching on his heels and undoing her bindings. This truly did surprise her, but her eyes were dull as they turned to him, glazed over and impassive, as she rubbed her bruised-to-blueness wrists.

"Even servants of Apollo have names." He said almost softly as he looked at her and this time she turned to look at him with her wide, dark eyes. He saw all different shades of hurt in those eyes when she turned to look at him, holding his gaze the way very few men had. She had the most unfathomable eyes he had ever seen. They contrasted sharply with the vibrant youth of her sweet face, giving her a sense of gravity that had nothing to do with the aristocratic way she held herself.

"Briseis." She said softly, the brazen directness of her gaze almost a challenge to him, even though an involuntary tear escaped down one cheek, testimony to her pain more than her demeanor was.

_Briseis_… she repeated in his head. Lovely name. It flowed like water on the tongue, curved and lovely – as she was.

"Are you afraid Briseis?"

There was something in his tone, something in that flat question that said he already knew the answer. And he did: she was in enemy camp, captive to a man whose reputation for being the most gifted killer in this invading army went far ahead of him.

It was such a pointless question that her eyes snapped to his to try to understand whatever could he mean by it.

Was she afraid? Briseis did not think that was not the right question. There were so many things in life that should be feared... but those things did not make life less worth living.

No, the right questions here was: what should she be afraid of? Or whom.

And just because his had been such a direct question, she chose to evade it just as directly.

"Should I be?"

She spoke ever so softly, but just as soft was the challenge in the directness of her eyes on him. It was the same directness that he had used when asking a question which he had assumed was obsolete. But she had somehow managed to bring the responsibility of any fear she might have back to him.

_Should I be... should I be afraid of you?_

_Nice trick,_ he thought as he stared at her hard, trying to pick apart her mind. _Odysseus would like her._

Perhaps so did he...

Oh, she _was_ afraid, he could tell.

He stood there looking at this girl that was not a day over seventeen, and saw the way she had been ravaged by the kind of life he called his own… and still managed to carry herself with dignity. She had a profile so delicate that made her look like the gods had taken fine care in carving out beauty for her alone. She seemed soft enough for him to bend between his finger and his thumb, but she was braver than many he had met before because she managed to do what most could not: she looked at him without flinching. Even now, looking at him from the corner of her eye with the weariness of a trapped animal, she was still trying to hide her fear and apprehension as best she could.

No, he did not want her to be afraid of him.

He was a lord of the battlefield, but that kind of fierceness was reserved for men at arms, for soldiers - men built to take it. Soldiers that embraced the possibility of their own death ever time they took up their sword. Not for soft maidens that were caught in the midst of man-made carnage and found their way into his tent.

"My lord!"

Eudorus' voice came from outside the tent and that moment when her looking at him with apprehension from under her lashes had been so drawing, it broke.

She looked away altogether.

"Agamemnon _requests_ you presence." His second in command said, and the way he stressed the word 'requests' reminded Achilles of the running joke between the myrmidons.

"And why would I want to look at him when I can look at her?" Achilles mused, not taking his eyes off the girl. Eurodorus smirked.

"The kings are celebrating the victory." he explained.

By this time Briseis was avoiding his eyes. Whatever had made her look at him so boldly before, with Eudorus there, it was gone. She seemed to stubbornly deny him her eyes even thought it was clear by the insistence with which he kept his on her, that he wanted her to look at him.

"You fought well today." Achilles said and thought his soldier was honored to her that from his commander's lips, Briseis resisted the urge to flinch at what that meant for the Trojans, but the tightening of her lips, the downward turn of them, the disgust on her face… it all gave her away immediately to him.

She felt the seed of anger grow, followed immediately by melancholy. Because she knew this anger and hatred could not lead anywhere.

What if this warrior was a good man. A patient man, who was simply good at yielding the gifts of strength and prowess that the gods had given him - like any other man.

Like Hector.

He was praising his soldiers, he valued them. Soldiers that for their leader risked their lives. Maybe they were god men too. Briseis felt tears spring in her eyes, but she blinked and held them back. What was the point in all this. Good men killing good men?

_Why?_

The moment she felt his soldier go, she looked at him again, and this time, her thoughts were reflected in her wide eyes and he read them clearly.

"What do you want here in Troy? You didn't come for the Spartan queen." She spoke quietly and so completely devoid of guile that it mitigated him. Perhaps she had wanted to know what _the Greeks_ want in troy, but he chose to answer only for himself, as he always did.

"I want what all men want. I just want it more." He answered softly and her with the same candidness she had spoken to him with and saw the confusion spring in her eyes at his words, saw the small frown between her brows.

What could he mean? Briseis had no idea what all men wanted, least of all him! And then she thought about his words more carefully and knew what he meant: it was not about the object of men's desire, it was about the way _he_ went about wanting it. Whatever it was that he wanted didn't matter, the point was that he would want it _more_ than anyone else.

Briseis tried imagining every man she had ever met in her life, and then tried to imagine them amplified.

What that what he'd meant?

Achilles tilted his head to one side as he considered her. She looked so terribly young, so unblemished and soft, frail like a bird… he supposed she was all that, but in the light of how he had spent his morning, of the smell of death that still clung to him, his perception of her was heightened. In the breast of war, with which he was as comfortable as an old friend, _she_ was achingly displaced.

When he spoke again, his tone was different. More resembling to the flat one he had used when he stepped in the tent.

"You don't need to fear me, girl. You're the only Trojan who can say that."

And he got up and left, emptying he tent and leaving her alone in her grief. Her eyes were almost shutting from all the tears she had shed and wiped away, her heart was heavy with despair.

Everything in her world had gone dark. She didn't need to fear him perhaps, but she did not feel any safer because of that.


	3. King of Kings

"You possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing."  
― Aristophanes, _The Knights_.

**KING OF KINGS**

Briseis had not moved from her spot. She had sat there and tried not to think. tried not to imagine what he would want with her. what he would make her do.

she looked around. there were plenty of weapons there. she eyed one short knife on the low table not too far from her and thought about palming it but... where would she hide it anyway? and what chance did she have with a man twice her own size, a man so skilled at taking life that his reputation as a brilliant killer proceeded him anywhere he went.

she did not even know if she had the strength of spirit to take a life... Could she be a killer? Soon she would lose everything she was to a man she despise. what did it matter if she shred that last bit of innocence from herself...

the world of men. she knew it now. and it was so different from learning her way with a sword just for play, or even sitting in a political table.

the world of men was war. Were men wretched creatures because of war, or was war that made them that way?

Briseis reached for the knife. She was hypnotized by the glint of the blade in her hands when the two soldiers blundered in the tent, startling her so much that she almost cut herself. She backed away, but there was nowhere to run. She tried to struggle, but one swipe of his metal-gloved hand, and she could only see blackness for a few moments, enough for them to drag her out. Other men stared after her, other cheered and said rude words.

She was dragged through the camp, struggled until they entered the big ship turned tent.

"Not a word." The soldier to her left said, as his blade pierced her throat. Her breath froze in her lings. Voices reached her distantly, and she recognized _his_, Achilles' - though now he was curt and there was a slight tilt of mocking to his tone. He sounded so different from when he'd spoken her to only moments ago.

"… you can have the beach. I didn't come here for sand."

"No, you came here because you want your name to last through the ages…"

Briseis started listening carefully.

"A great victory was won today – but the victory is not yours. _Kings_ did not kneel to Achilles. _Kings_ did not bring homage to Achilles."

The fact that this needed confirmation already worked against the statement itself, Briseis thought. And the fact that this king – for the man speaking was the king of the Greeks army, she did not need anyone confirming her that – felt that he needed to assert his authority over Achilles proved that he had none over the man to begin with.

"Perhaps the Kings were too far behind to see. The soldiers won the battle." The more relaxed and smooth Achilles' answers were, the more angers seeped into the King's voice, making it vibrate and scratch.

"History remembers the _kings_, not the soldiers. Tomorrow we'll batter down the gates of Troy. I'll build monuments to victory on every island of Greece, I'll carve _Agamemnon_ in the stone."

"Be careful king of kings. First you need the victory."

There was a threat there somewhere, Briseis could sense it. It was folded neatly in the smooth, lethally quiet way in which Achilles delivered those words, like a sharp dagger folded in silk. Apparently she was not the only one to sense it, because the King who had been spitting out threats and indignation was silence for a moment or two.

It was strange listening to this. The more the king raised his voice and grew irritated, the more Achilles seemed to enjoy himself, sounding even more at his ease as he spoke slowly, deliberately, as if every word was measured to hurt most, the way he probably measured the strikes of his sword.

The silence that stretched was littered with the sound of heavy, assured steps that started to come closer.

"One more thing, son of Peleus." The king called, this time composed.

The steps stopped.

"I don't want to hear my father's name from your mouth."

Briseis heard Achilles say, and the edge of his voice was so sharp this time that it was a wonder it did not cut the other man down. The games were over.

"The first pick of the battle's spoils always goes to the commander. Your men sacked the temple of Apollo, yes?

"You want gold? Take it. It's my gift, to honor your courage, take what you wish." And the mockery in those words stood out so clear that Achilles might as well have spat in the Kings' face and called him a coward.

But the King sounded please none the less.

"I already have… Aphareus! Haemon!"

_So _this_ is what I'm here for…_

Briseis spared herself that thought as she was dragged inside so violently that she couldn't help the whimpers. She tried to keep up butt his time the two men were handling her roughly on purpose… so she struggled. And they hurt her more. She fought for every inch of herself... until they threw her in and she saw him.

Saw his eyes widen and then sharpen with unconcealed fury at the sight of her being shoved inside.

"The spoils of war."

Her eyes found the other man, larger than she had imagined him, but just as brutal. His voice matched him. His leer made her want to tear his eyes out. This was what she was now: the toy with which two proud men played with, tossing her back and forth.

But the look on Achilles' face was anything but playful. He looked as blank as a clean sheet of papyrus and it chilled her to the bone, because in that blank face, his eyes burned with rage as sharp as the edge of his sword.

"I have no argument with you brothers, but if you don't release her, you'll never see home again… _Decide_."

He spoke harshly and Briseis realized that she had not seen Achilles as of yet. _This_, this feral creature she was looking at now was the feared man of the legends she had heard.

"Guards!"

The swish of his sword was what brought her to life so swiftly that she was surprised at her own strength as she slithered out of the guard's hold on both her arms. But then again, that may have been because they were too afraid of _him_ to hold her properly.

"_Stop_!"

And despite the desperation in her voice, the men in the room stood frozen and looked at her with surprise, and then at their would-be-murderer wearily. They would be dead by now, but Achilles was standing still, listening.

"Too many men have died today."

Briseis looked around the room and then finally, at him, at the sight he made so tense and ready to take life, the ferocity of him that she could barely stand to look at for too long.

"If killing is your only talent, that's your curse. I don't want anyone dying for me."

And despite the bleeding cuts on her face and the ruined robes she was wearing, Briseis could still speak the way she was taught to: strongly and without hesitation, so that she may command the attention of all those in the room. She was taught to speak as a queen would. Briseis had never thought that _this_ would have been how she used her skill…

But then again, the most extraordinary thing happened – and she was so surprised that she realized she hadn't thought, not even for a heartbeat, that he would listen to her when he was not willing to listen even to his king - but he did…

Achilles withdrew angrily and started pacing around like an feral beast in a cage, his rage poisoning the very air around him, making the soldiers take steps back, afraid of him.

She had not expected him to listen. Nobody was more shocked that she was that he did. But still, even thought not poised to fight, the violence so tightly coiled in him frightened her to the point that she felt like backing away from him too. Still, Briseis did not move an inch. Because backing from Achilles would mean stepping into Agamemnon… and that would be pure stupidity. It hadn't taken long for Briseis to figure that she'd be better off suffer at Achilles' rage than Agamemnon's cruelty… but she had stopped him from getting into a feud with this so called king.

How exactly had she done that?

Apparently, Briseis was not the only one who wondered.

The King's laugh resonated but it was devoid of humor.

"Mighty Achilles, silenced by a slave girl."

His eyes were like blue flame when they fell on the King, the violence in them so sharp and real that if looks could kill, Agamemnon would be now in front of Hades and accounting for his sins.

"She's not a slave." Achilles hissed, his teeth gritted so tightly that it was a wonder he could speak. Briseis looked at him with surprise.

"She is now." Agamemnon pointed out, smirking – and the different between the two men could not have been clearer to the girl that stood now between them. Agamemnon came close and took some of her hair and smelled it, the same way Achilles had. Her eyes remained on the floor, impassive, unreachable.

"Tonight, I'll have her give me a bath." The king said and Achilles' eyes flashed like a blade, to the king's great pleasure.

"And then… who knows."

Briseis felt her skin craw with disgust at the man's proximity, but she could do nothing of it. The king spoke, but it was Achilles he watched. So eager this king seemed to spite the blonde warrior, that the moment he found something that even distantly resembled a vague chance to do so, he exploited the opportunity without any regard for boundaries.

A moment later, perhaps, Agamemnon regretted ever doing so, when Achilles turned to look at him, with flat and merciless eyes. That had been the last thing many men had seen before dying.

"Before my time is done, King of Kings, I will look down on your corpse and smile."

And Achilles saw in the way Agamemnon's face fell, that he believed every world.

He should.

Just a moment before he exited the tent, Achilles looked upon _her_ one last time and this time, she was looking at him straight in the eyes, as if she had been the one to draw his gaze there. He felt his fists clench tightly and forced himself to look away with a scowl.

Those dark haunted eyes staring at him expressionlessly would haunt him for days to come, he knew.


	4. Mortals

"Come here, let me share a bit of wisdom with you.  
Have you given much thought to our mortal condition?  
Probably not. Why would you? Well, listen.  
_All mortals owe a debt to death._  
There's no one alive  
who can say if he will be tomorrow.  
Our fate moves invisibly! A mystery.  
No one can teach it, no one can grasp it.  
Accept this! Cheer up! Have a drink!  
But don't forget Aphrodite-that's _one sweet goddess._  
You can let the rest go.

― Anne Carson, _Grief Lessons: Four Plays _

'_Agamemnon spat on my honor yesterday. I promised that girl her safety and he stole her from me. Let _him_fight the Trojans today.'_

**MORTALS**

"My lord!" Eudorus called as he pushed the threads of Achilles tent.

The subtle note of tension in his second-in-command's voice gave Achilles pause. He went after Eudorus and a hundred paces later, he needed not follow any more. He heard the shouts and cheers. The names they called her. He heard her whimpers as she resisted them. He saw her when she hit one of them straight in the face, peeling the skin off the man's face in three red lines, in the shape of her nails.

She, a slip of a girl half their size with only a fraction of their strength… and she _still_ had more courage than any of them.

His hands ached to tear into them with his fists.

"Better a Spartan slave and a Trojan priestess…"

"_Achilles!"_

But it was too late for the man branding the hot iron brad. It had been too late since the moment he'd picked it up. After the first two fell, nobody came forth. His alleys feared him just as much as the Trojans did. He threw the hot rod on the sand and picked her up almost in the same movement.

She weighted nothing in his arms and lay so very still that he would have thought she had finally lost her senses, but her shivers and almost silent sobs told him different. He felt her tears and blood wet the side of his neck but the only sign she was shedding tears was little shivers every now and then.

It was a short walk to his hut. He put her on his furs and she sat there, scrambling a little, sniffing. Some of her bruises had faded and she had new ones. More cuts, more blood on her face since the last time he saw her.

"Are you hurt?"

She just looked at him with dull eyes and silent mouth. _What do you think?_ those eyes seemed to say, defiantly. He could almost hear her in his head. With her knees drawn close to her chest like that, her once-white robe about her, she looked more a girl than a woman. Again he was reminded how young she must be.

"I watched you fight them, you have courage."

She scowled. "To fight back when people attack me? _Dog_ has that kind of courage."

He smirked a little. She may be beaten and bloodied, but she was still sharp. He wondered for a moment if that was why she seemed so enthralling to him: because she was many things that many beautiful girls he'd had before had not been: she was fearless even when she was terrified; she bowed to no one, not even to those who could break her with a thought and scatter her about the sand as if she'd never been.

"I like dogs more than people sometimes." He said, his smile only barely visible and his words caused her to look up at him… and hold his gaze as she tried to understand what she was seeing.

He tried to clean her wounds and she stopped him, smacking him away. He tried again, and again the same reaction. And when he finally lost patience and threw the wet linen on her face, she grabbed it and had the nerve to throw it back into his, matching him even in petulance. He felt the flicker of irritation… but after what she had been thought it would have been unkind to give in, he thought as he slowly took the cloth and let it drop back in the basin. He didn't miss the apprehension on her face as she followed his movement – she'd thought he would strike her, but the fear had not stopped her from provoking him. Or maybe she hadn't thought that far.

_Impulsive..._

Achilles turned away to grab the bowl of fruit and meat and he saw her eye him suspiciously for a moment and then reach for the water and the linen herself.

He extended his food to her.

"Eat." he said simply, but all he got was a suspicious stare. She was unwilling to accept anything from her enemy, even if it was kindness. He could understand that as well. But he also knew that if she didn't eat anything soon, she was going to fain on his rugs.

But there was something exceptionally provoking to him about the way she refused to submit. To let up, even in the face of kindness. She was sweet as a peach but she was proving to be something more: she held on to her dignity with the ferocity of a mountain lion.

Briseis caught him staring at her and did not look away. She met his eyes and challenged him back.

"I've known men like you my whole life." She finally said, tone dismissive. His contradiction was calm, assured.

"No, you haven't."

Her strike to make him anonymous did not even graze him, he was that possessed by the consciousness of his own greatness. Briseis scoffed. All those words, just to say that he was arrogant.

"Think you're so different from a thousand others?" She pointed out a little snippily and in truth, that got to him.

All his life, he had fought and bled so that he could release himself from the facelessness anonymity. To be different from a thousand others, not to shrink into the face of eternity like countless men before him.

He _was_ different, he was born to be. That was why he was going to be remembered. It was why he had come here.

One little girl could not make him doubt that.

"Soldiers understand nothing but war. Peace confuses them." She said simply, and he knew then that she did not really understand the men that died in battle.

He tried testing her, to see her mind.

"And you hate these soldiers?"

"I pity them." But there was enough arrogance in her tone for it not to be entirely true. She looked down on them, that was the truth.

"Trojan soldiers died trying to protect you. Perhaps they deserve more than your pity." He said as he looked at her unflinchingly and watched the understanding, apprehensions and even a little shame dawn on her face as she looked down, frowning.

It was strange to talk to her when she was so bloodied up. He didn't like to see her face that way, but she was more preoccupied arguing with him than cleaning herself up. The thoughts were tuning in her head and Achilles saw her understanding of him shift with every word he uttered, swirl and change like the shades of brown in her eyes at the light of the fire,

"Why did you chose this life?" She asked softly. The question confused him, as much as her manner of asking it. She spoke freely with him, she did not even think about asking for permission to do so. Another testimony of her royal origins perhaps, but that was not what impressed him.

Slowly, Achilles found out that he liked speaking with her and hearing her speak to him, matching him. It was new for him, to simply talk to a woman only for the sake of the words being said and not with a later time and a bed in mind. It had been a long time since that happened. But still, the uncertainty of her, the fact that she was as likely to gut him as to willingly part her legs for him was… strangely thrilling. More so than any lascivious baiting by females much more desirable than her.

She was unwilling to be conquered.

That made him want to conquer all the more.

"What life?"

"This… To be a great warrior!" She asked and there's the hint of distaste as she speaks the words. He can't fault her: she has seen what great warriors do to earn that name.

He looked away for a moment before answering and when he did, his voice fell flat.

"I chose nothing. I was born ad this is what I am."

There was a darker edge to his words as he says them and Briseis gets the vague feeling that perhaps he does not believe he could ever do anything else in his life but kill… and how sad that destiny was for any man.

"Do you enjoy it?" She asks slowly, eyes weary, wet cloth forgotten.

By the firelight, she looks too young to be asking this. He knows he cannot explain to her what it feels to cut through dozens that try to take your life and come around unscathed, to be powerful enough to control you own destiny, to feel the strength in you limbs and how it overcomes you when you win a duel… to have your name chanted by thousands…

He chooses to tell her something she would understand.

"Does the scorpion feel joy when he stings the beetle? I doubt it. I doubt he feels anything at all."

But she is not fooled. "But you're not a scorpion, you're a man."

He merely looked at her in that expressionless, fathomless way he looked at her usually.

"And you, why did you chose to love a god? I think you'll find the romance one sided…" The teasing in his voice returned, especially because some of the thoughts in his head right now amused him greatly. He firmly believed, as he looked on her face, imagine the body hidden under that robe, that she had not been made to waste her love on a god.

Briseis of Troy had been made to be loved, often and well, by a man that could show her exactly in how many ways her god's love was lacking.

But Briseis had no way of knowing his thoughts and she was so irritated by his teasing that she did not notice how swiftly he had changed the subject.

"Do you enjoy provoking me?" She asked, glaring at him.

His small smile was a rare sight. The unspoken '_yes'_ was just at the corner of it, as clear as if he'd said it anyway and it irritated her even more. And suddenly, as she looked at him with unmasked annoyance, he found the point where her world of purity, peace and holy prayers could meet with his violent and ruthless one.

"You've dedicated your life to the gods, yes? Zeus, God of Thunder. Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. You serve them?"

She does not see where he is leading her, but she admits the truth that he already should know.

"Yes, of course."

"And Aries, God of War, who blankets his bed with the skins of men he's killed?"

Briseis pauses, caught in the trap and he saw the realization dawn in her eyes, as she struggled for a right answer.

"All the gods are to be feared and respected." She admits slowly.

He does not say anything, only looks at her, at the picture she makes so adamant and steady. He tilts his head and looks at her earnestly, in a way that makes her want to back a little away from him. The silence between them seems charged with more than just contention but she cannot tell really pick apart her feelings, they seem to be foreign to her.

It all fells very unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

"I'll tell you a secret—something they don't teach you in your temple."

His words are as slow and soft as his movements when he crawls a little towards her, sitting on the furs she was sitting on. Briseis watches him approach with apprehension, but not fear. She knows by now that he would not harm her that way.

But there are many ways to do harm…

"The gods envy _us_." He says slowly, so intensely that she is enthralled, despite herself. "They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful _because_ we're doomed."

He wants her to understand, to realize how precious and short life is, how every moment is more vivid because of that. He wants her to understand how he lives and why, and maybe if she will understand that her life too is too precious for anything but what she truly _wants_ to do.

Every moment is unique, nothing is ever the same twice.

"You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."

And it seemed to her that his eyes were saying: _So don't waste it_.

Briseis didn't know why she felt that there was something darker hidden between his words, why she felt that her head was swirling with the vibrating danger of it... There seemed to be in invitation somewhere in there, but Briseis was too stunned to find it. He was looking at her with the kind of intensity that burned but it did not hurt her when she stared back. To keep looking at him straight in the eyes as she was doing was the very thing that she had been taught not to do, when a man looked at her the way Achilles was looking at her now. But none of that really mattered. This place… she could not apply the same rules here as she had applied to the rest of her life. This was nothing like her life.

She was in _his_ world now.

And she was beginning to understand it so clearly, so sharply that it frightened her. Because he was right: she had never loved her life more than in the moments when she'd thought it would be taken away from her. She'd never fought as fiercely, never even known she was capable of that much strength.

She was here with him now, and she had never felt closer to her own end in her entire life.

It changed things, staring in the face of death, having her at your heel, breathing down your neck. Made some things seem less important than they had seemed yesterday. But most of all, every second she lived through was bright and heightened, sharp and all-consuming - because the next one might never come…

With wonder, she looked back up into his eyes… and instantly he knew that she had understood him well. There was acceptance in her taking one grape and biting into it and Achilles relished in her doing that.

"I thought you were a dumb brute." She said softly, looking him in the eye. "I could have forgiven a dumb brute."


	5. In the night

"_Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness. Most of them are the hardest time to be alive and 4am knows all my secrets" Poppy Z. Britte_

**IN THE NIGHT**

_"I thought you were a dumb brute." She said softly, looking him in the eye. "I could have forgiven a dumb brute."_

The smile in his eyes was full of interest and finally she decided that it would be safe to look away. Briseis started earnestly scrubbing her face this time, cleaning all the blood and grime away. She wished more than anything for a scalding bath, but she stopped, did not allow her thoughts to wonder further. Instead she focused on Achilles' words, on what they meant. Ironically enough, focusing on him right now was far safer than letting her thoughts wonder idly.

She looked up at him again and her hand stilled. She honestly did not know what to say... but she felt unnerved by his so intense stare. It made her want to squirm.

It was Achilles that broke the silence.

"There's more water in the basin over there." He spoke and gestured to the other corner of the tent, but his eyes never moved from hers. "And a clean robe by it."

He got up and looked down at her.

"I won't be back for some time." He said and walked out of his tent without looking back. Briseis stared at is back as he went, and could not help but think back to her own words not moments ago.

'_I've known men like you my whole life._'

She had known many kinds of men, but never one that managed to confuse her so thoroughly. He seemed to be so many contradictory things at once that she did not know which side of him to believe: was he a heartless murderer, or was he a kind man, as his behavior to her seemed to suggest?

Could one man be both?

She was much less trouble to him dead than alive, and yet, here she was. And she as being treated with patience, maybe even… kindness? Kindness from a murderer. That was something to behold she supposed.

In the back of her mind Briseis knew that there was more to him that just talented a killer. It was pointless to deny it. His every action towards her proved it. Briseis would have liked to think her captor only as evil and heartless, but she couldn't. Not when the proof that he was not stared her in the face, not when he'd been nothing but patient, not when his were the hands that saved her life mere hours ago…

She was stubborn, not stupid.

Whatever he was, his words still haunted her even as she scrubbed herself raw. He could not have known what it meant for her to hear those words spoken so clearly, unflinchingly. What he'd said of mortality and it's fleetingness, when he'd spoken about the tragic fragility of life and how everything else paled in comparison… Briseis had been frightened of him then, more so than when they'd first met, because what he'd said had sounded so incredibly true.

She'd instantly recognized the truth of his words, as if she'd known it all along, always. He could not have known the effect he'd have. Or how his words struck a chord so deep into her that it hurt.

He could not have known how, one stormy night so many years ago, Cassandra had found her way into Briseis quarters, silent as a ghost. Storms were so very rare in Troy and most feared them, but Cassandra had not been surprised that Briseis didn't. She had come and laid on the child's bed and spoken softly, started telling a story about a time yet to come… Told Briseis that for every man and woman under the sun, a prophecy was woven, that everyone had a destiny, a path to follow and sometimes Apollo would let Cassandra glimpse down this path and see the turns it took, she jags and sharps angles it would hold.

Just as softly, Cassandra had told the awed little girl that on that night, she had looked down Briseis' path and seen her future there, how it was tightly wound around death and suffering. She had revealed to the little girl, with cruel calmness, the manner of her death, of how it would come to pass and why…

And though the heavens cracking open and not frightened Briseis, Cassandra's words had made her blood run cold. She'd run into Hector's quarters, and crawled into his and Andromache's bed, crying. Hector had been so angry with his sister that he'd made sure Cassandra never crossed paths with Briseis again.

But... Now that Briseis was in an enemy camp, beaten and bloodied, she knew her time had come. She was here, facing her death that would come at the hands of the Greeks... just as Cassandra had foretold that stormy night.

Achilles' voice resounded though her mind. His words left her hollow.

_Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful _because_ we're doomed…_

Well, he was wrong. She knew now that she would die here in this camp, sooner rather than later. She knew her doom – not in every way all mortal men did, but in an intimate way, because it was breathing down her neck _now_, _here_. And things did not feel more beautiful. Beauty had nothing to do with this. Everything was just… so intense it hurt. Every feeling, every thought, every sensation or trepidation was felt to the marrow of her bones and they scarred her from the inside, leaving her bleeding internally. Briseis knew she was standing at the doorstep of her end, but she could not look around and feel the life. All she felt was desolation and a need to abandon herself, to rebel, to scream in rage.

It was unfair. She had not yet seen her eighteenth year of life. Why should she die now?

Unfair, yes, but real. So very real, it already hurt.

Imminent death makes everything look so much more bare, Briseis thought as a tremor ran though her. All the choices she'd made had been in the service of a future she would not see. It did not make her life worthless - she was glad of the way she had lived… But it did make her sad. There was so much she still wanted to do.

None of that mattered now, she supposed…

_We will never be here again…_

Oh, that was sure, Briseis thought bitterly. She could almost feel the chill of Hade's gates on her heel and it gave her a frightening numbness. It was almost spreading to hear heart when a whisper in her head ordered her to stop feeling sorry for herself at once, she was being pathetic!

That voice sounded strangely like Cassandra's scathing tones, and Briseis was grateful – it shook her out of numbness. Despite Cassandra's difficult character, Briseis had always loved her. Her cousin had taught her how to endure, how to be strong. Not the kind of strong Andromache was: regal, wise, patient, dignified. Cassandra was something else… the scorned princess had taught Briseis to stand upright even in the face of ridicule, even when all would spit on her, hate her. She had taught Briseis of pain and how to bear it with her back standing straight, her head held high.

So Briseis stopped feeling so sorry for herself. Whatever was the will of the gods, so it would be done. She had no say in it.

_We will never be here again…_

Briseis looked at the clean deep blue robe by the water basin. Smelled herself and then winced… with a resigned sigh, and a weary glance towards the tent's entrance, she took the robe in her hands. It was as soft as the one she was wearing, and Briseis shuddered. So what if she shed her white robe? Symbols did not mean anything here. But after she scrubbed herself raw, she proceeded to wash her white robe, and hang it to dry in a dark corner where he wouldn't see it… hopefully. She would still be as much of Briseis in the morning as she was tonight… if he let her.

Somehow, Briseis knew that he would and for some reason she was not being foolish by believing that.

oOoOo

When he entered the tent again the fire had died out and darkness had swallowed every corner. His eyes got used to it quickly and he moved inside, silent as a shadow as he searched for her. He found her shape on the pallet where he'd left her, only now her face seemed clean, she was wearing the fresh robe… she was sleeping, curled around herself like a child afraid to be struck. She looked as small too.

Achilles waked to his pallet, picked up a woolen cover and then knelt by her and lightly covered her with it, trying not to disturb her rest as he did so. But she shuddered none the less, and then jumped awake, instantly pushing herself away from him and flattening herself against tent's wooden panel, her eyes looking but not really seeing. She was frantic, he imagined he could hear her pulse-point pounding…

Achilles stood unmoving.

Briseis wanted to call out his name, to be sure the dark shape standing so close was him, but her voice was stuck in her throat. Her breathing came harsh, but she swallowed her fear.

"Achilles?"

Her whisper was as strained as her nerves and it was carried to him by the dark in a way that to him, it seemed almost like a caress. He smirked, but she could not even make out his general shape, let alone the expression on his face. She was strung tightly that he expected her to shatter at the barest brush. The glint of the blade in her hand that she was so poorly concealing had him smirking wider… he had to give it to her, she had nerve.

Was she planning to stab him with that thing?

Then he noticed the uncertainty shaking her voice when she whispered his name.

"No one else would dare come in here." He said slowly, keeping his voice low, because in the depth of the night's silence, even the barest whisper seemed too loud. So probably her soft scoff was not meant for his ears, but he heard it anyway and frowned deeply, almost to the brick of anger because of her ungratefulness, but then he thought back at how she'd been dragged away from his tent before… but then he remembered - he'd promised her her safety once before, and she'd been stolen from him without any regard for his honor… or any fear of his blade. He remembered and he felt chastised like a child, a feeling so foreign to him that it took him a bit longer than necessary to process it (he could not even remember the last time he felt rightly caught in a mistake). He could not blame her for being skeptic.

But despite that, even in the dark the wave of tensions she let go of was palpable when she heard his voice - and his smirk widened. She was not so afraid of him anymore.

Good, he did not want her to fear him.

But she was still tense, and the blade was still in her hand. She moved her legs away from him, an arm coming around her knees as she drew them to her chest.

"I'm not going to force you." He said dryly as he got up and strode to his own bed. "If that was what I wanted I would have done it by now don't you think?"

She stayed silent, her eyes tried to follow the shape of him. She heard the sound of cloth against skin and she imagined he was undressing to sleep. She shifted even more against the wall, instinctively.

But his words did not go unnoticed. Nor the distaste in his tone what he spoke them. She wanted to ask 'why not' when it was so usual for soldiers to do so… but she did not want to push her luck or his mood.

But still, even though she did not voice her question, his softly-spoken words answered it anyway.

"I told you you didn't need to fear me. I keep my promises." He said to the darkness and she swallowed hand, trying to send her hear back in the middle of her chest. Those were the last words he spoke to her that night… she passed the rest of it listening to his breathing until she finally fell asleep as well and dreamt of violent storms and death's cloak.


	6. Briseis of Troy (part 1)

_AN: I spilt this chapter in two because it was so long. There is complete continuity between this chapter and the next however._

_Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. But sometimes, rare times, you meet someone who knows exacly who they are and it surprises you how, even with all odds against them, that identity cannot be stolen away.  
It simply refuses to be taken. (Adapted from a quote by Oscar Wilde)_

**BRISEIS OF TROY **(part 1)

Briseis did not leave the tent for two days. She stayed there, paced, fiddled, read every tome of parchment there was even if most were about history and philosophy from men she had never heard of before. She spoke little to Achilles and most astoundingly - to her at least - he did not bother her.

Mostly he watched her. First it had put her on edge, but soon she got used to it.

On the second night, when he was watching her so closely that her skin started heating and prickling, Briseis put the candle out earlier than she had the night before. He did not object… but she could feel the impression of his eyes on her skin even after she knew he was asleep.

It was not intrusive enough to make her skin crawl in the way she knew men's eyes could. His looks were somehow not invasive … only incredibly intense, and _that_ was what made her flinch. Briseis knew what it was like to have men desire her, but that expression on his eyes, those few things she'd caught his looks and held it, was something else…

_I want what every man wants… I just want it more._

No matter how many men had tried to court her, she'd never held the attention of one so entirely upon herself. The feeling it created was foreign. Still, Briseis did not feel threatened… for now. Only slightly uncomfortable. Mostly she felt like screaming at her lack of _space_ – childish and petty as the need may be, confronted to the direness of her situation. This stilled existence was not for her – in fact, on the third morning, Briseis thought she might go insane if she spent one more second in that tent…

But stepping out was a dangerous thing to do. The inside of Achilles tent was a safe refuge, Briseis knew that. She may scorn that reality but she'd never been one to deny the obvious - she had been taught to face it unflinchingly…

So she stepped out!

The sun hitting her eyes was not a gentle thing. She put her hand in front of them and squeezed her lids shut for a few moments. She did not wonder father than two steps from Achilles' tent, she simply sat there on the warm sand, drawing her knees to her chest, arms around them making sure that her white robe stayed in place, not showing even as much as a toe.

Her eyes strayed over the sea… her thoughts not so far away. Just a couple of miles off really, behind high unbreakable walls, behind wide windows and balconies. The highest building in Troy was the palace, it overlooked the whole city and the beach. Briseis wondered if maybe her cousin – who got out on his balcony every morning to see his city – could see her now.

Probably not, but he could see the same thing she saw: he could see the army invading his land. The shores overrun so far that she couldn't even see its end.

Briseis turned her head towards her city.

Troy would stand. It _had_ to.

Troy would never fall, not to these barbarians…

"Your courage displays itself again."

His words, his _being_, sounded so close that it felt closer than her own robe. Her head turning was instinctive and when she did and found him only a _breath_ away from her face, crouched down to her level and looking at her with those eyes of his like cuts from the sea. She couldn't really read his expression, but it seemed tinted with amusement.

He was so close that his breath fanned itself across her face. She smelled the sweetness of the wine in it, the crispness of the sea on him. Briseis fixed her eyes on his face and saw that his traveled leisurely across her featured only to settle on her lips. She knew the look in those eyes and what it meant, why it made his mouth relax, his lips part just a little bit…

Briseis looked away instantly, staring ahead of her to the waves.

How had she not heard him approaching, felt him standing there so close?

"Did you finish reading all there was to read so soon?" He asked calmly. He was still standing too close.

"I'm a fast reader, and you a poor one. There weren't nearly as many rolls of parchment in your tent to keep me occupied for long."

He chuckled.

"So you finally decided to come out."

"Am I to stay inside your tent always?"

"No. But you had to realize that on your own." He said simply, and watched her delicate profile as she watched the sea. "I had a feeling your wouldn't quite believe me if I told you so." He added, smiling as if there was a joke only he knew.

"I'd rather be a little less safe and _do_ something with myself." Briseis finally said softly, still not looking at him. "I have never known such unfruitful stay in my life, it brings me more anguish than it should, considering…"

She let her words stray. Her loneliness and torment were getting the better of her if she decided to open up to one such as him... Briseis had to be stronger than that.

"Considering how much anguish being a captive should bring you?" He filled and her only answer was a look she spared him before returning her eyes to the horizon. In the sun, he observed, he could plainly see the tint of green in her eyes.

"And pray tell, what _can_ you do? In my 28 years I've never met a noble woman who was able to do anything deemed useful."

She sighed and for the first time, it sound like she was defeated. When she spoke, she did so quietly.

"I supposed you're right. Most of my talents are not of any use here, and those that may be, I refuse to put to the benefit of the men invading my home."

Her tone was dry and final, but now he became interested - she could tell, because he went from couching at her side to sitting down right by her and so close that her shoulder touched his every time he shifted his arm to bring the cup he was drinking from to his lips.

He had every intention of having a conversation.

"You haven't answered my question." He stated.

Briseis wondered how much she should tell him. Did she really want his interest? No, she certainty did not… but having him cast her aside for someone else to have because he was bored by her was even less appealing.

"I can sew and sing and dance and other things a lady should know and that you would have no interest hearing of." She said flatly and with the corner of her eye saw him smirk. He did not contradict her.

"And…" his urging was firm, but bereft of coercion.

"_And _I was taught to read and write in different languages, tutored in rhetoric, philosophy, history… arithmetic and astronomy but I never like either, I would have much preferred to…" Briseis stopped talking abruptly, catching herself before she could finish that thought. He looked at her expectantly, but she just shook her head and looked away… and Achilles instantly understood that the rest of that had something to do with her family.

The silence between them did not last long. By coming out in the open she had stepped over a line that she had not known had been there, but could feel the liberation of it now. She had lost all hope and resistance... and in that loss, she found herself free. Much more so than before.

It was a strange feeling.

"Why?" he asked suddenly, making her turn her head to him.

"Why what?"

"Why would a girl like yourself need to be so thoroughly instructed in matters partaking to men? Singing and dancing ought to suffice for your sex."

There was some form of taunting hidden between those words, but Briseis did not need to fully understand the meaning of it to feel irritated at him. Her warm eyes turned to him, glared.

"It would suffice for a Greek perhaps, but even a Greek as yourself would have to admit that only knowing how to sing and dance would make me very dull company indeed."

He smirked and looked at her through hooded eyes. Briseis looked away immediately, not really knowing why she had to, but feeling that she must.

"Besides, I would not be very able to hold an intelligent conversation with a man if I could not match him in broadness of mind, don't you agree?"

She repeated the words her tutors used to say to her without much thought for consequence. They were part of the way she'd lived, ingrained into her - but from those words, he seemed to gather more information than she was prepared to reveal.

"And why would you need to hold an intelligent conversation with a man?"

Briseis frowned as she looked at him. He seems to be asking for an explanation, but that glint in his eyes, that tilt of his tone made her suspicious. It suggested her to measure her words carefully, because this is not a man who simply fished for answers blindly.

"I suppose you Greek men see your Greek women only as pretty faces to keep your bed warm, but in Troy we have different customs." She answered drily but she sees that instead of offending him, it makes him smile.

"A woman's duty does not end at producing heirs: women of Troy are taught that to be good wives, they must be able to assist their husbands in any way their husband may need. And they need to be good mothers, because the mother is the child's first teacher. Therefore a woman's education must extend in order to fulfill that purpose honorably."

Achilles sat in silence and looked at her in such a way that made her uncomfortable, as if he was looking straight into her and he knew of the half-truths she was speaking… but Briseis could not trust her perceptions of him. She did not know this man at all, he could be thinking anything.

"Sounds like you had a very busy life. What I still don't understand is why a princess like you, so thoroughly trained to be a someone's queen one day, would chose to serve the gods instead of marrying her prince?"

"I never said I was part of the royal family. You assumed." Briseis finally snapped, for the first time acknowledging his claims on her origins.

"And I am right." He said calmly, looking at her in the eyes to steadily that she frowned, knowing she was caught, but refusing to surrender. And besides, he was so sure of himself, damn him, it irritated her like nothing else.

"Think what you like, trying to turn you mind would be a waste of my breath." She responded dryly. But she did not look away from his eyes this time. In his eyes, she could see the wheels turning, the thoughts forming.

"You're afraid of what would happen to you if Agamemnon and his kings came to learn that they had a princess of Troy in captivity, aren't you?"

And at that he saw the fear flood her eyes like it was a live thing, it made them swirl and change color almost, darken as her face paled a shade of two. The change prodded at the violence in him so instantly that even Achilles himself was surprised at his reaction. He did not want her afraid. He had never failed to protect anyone he'd given his word to in his life… except from her. It set his fury aflame that she could not find safety in him, that she doubted him - and that it was Agamemnon's fault.

One more reasons to hate the man.

Achilles leaned forward a little, his face a few inches some hers, expression so fierce and intense that her heart skipped and her breathing stopped altogether, but Briseis was too frozen to move. His eyes burned like cold blue flame and she could almost feel the heat of his anger scorching her.

"_Nothing_ is going to happen to you and no one will know who you are but me."

Briseis was not so frightened by his intensity not to speak up her thoughts.

"Are you making me a promise?"

A hint of amusement made its way to his eyes, softening is look a little bit.

"Would you like me to make it in blood?"

Briseis shook her head '_no'_, the suspicion clear in the frown that pulled her brows together, but something in her settled, fell in her stomach with the heaviness of a pile of stones.

"Why would you not tell them?" She asked softly, and it was as good as any admission. He leaned back and Briseis saw the change in him as he relaxed, as that fierceness of the warrior melted out of him and his eyes softened, warmed.

"I am here to fight a war. Let the kings handle the politics."

Briseis looked at him long and hard and then turned to look at the sea. He was interested in nothing but his own glory, she realized. He did not care about anything else. In his simplicity, he reminded her of her cousin… and how ironic that was. That both Achilles, the great warrior and Hector, the beloved prince, had this in common: their distaste for political games and lies.

"Is that a smile I see? I thought I'd never get to see one on your face."

Briseis quickly composed herself. She had not realized she was smiling, but now it was too late to remedy. She felt embarrassed, as if she needed to explain, to justify. Not to him, but to herself.

"I was thinking about my cousin… and thinking that maybe, in another life, you two may have found yourselves comfortable in each-others company."

"Is that so?"

There was amusement in his voice. Briseis had to admit, that the idea was so ludicrous that it was funny: Hector, defender of Troy, in friendship with Achilles, the best killer of the Greeks…

"You are both warriors, used to look at your enemy in the eyes, used to the tangible nature of victory or defeat in the battlefield. You both have short patience for the deceitful and twisted nature of politics."

He chuckled warmly, a deep-throated sound that made her smile.

"And besides, you both share an irritating insolence for the gods." Briseis added a little more snippily and at that he outright laughed, making a few men close by turn to look at their lord in surprise and then turn away immediately after. Briseis turned to look at him on impulse, surprised as much as his men were by the sound of his laughter. The look of him, of laughter in his eyes, made him look almost like a different man.

He could be handsome when he smiled, when he laughed, relaxed, possibly one of the most handsome men she'd ever met… if he wasn't a Greek.

Briseis turned her head away, angry at herself.

There were too many if-s in that sentence.


	7. Briseis of Troy (part2)

**BRISEIS OF TROY**_(part 2)_

Her eyes stayed on him and held and neither broke the moment but then it broke by itself, when a rumble behind them made them both turn. Briseis jumped a little at the commotion. She turned to look and there were two men, fighting but by the laughter of them she could tell they were only playing.

"Patrocles..."

Achilles sounded a little cross, but the amusement in his eyes did not vanish. He used the same tone that Hector sometimes used on Paris when he caught his little brother sneaking into the palace at the break of dawn.

The boy with his face currently in the sand, being held there by the other man – who was bigger and more heavily muscled than the boy, undoubtedly older – was family to Achilles. She could tell by the mere way the warrior looked at the boy, by the way his expression softened.

"Do you yield?" The soldier asked, not loosening his grip. The hold the man had on the boys arm seemed painful, but the boy only grunted out.

"Never!"

"I will break this arm boy." The soldier warned.

"Do your worst." the boy ground out and Briseis held her breath. But the soldier did not break the boy's arm – instead he let the boy go, who scrambled to his feet.

"Again!" The boy shouted, scrambling to his feet.

He looked a little like Achilles actually, now that Briseis could see him clearly. His face was so much younger though, his frame leaner, his muscles more wiry… his eyes so much more innocent.

Briseis doubted that boy had any more years on his back than she did.

"At ease cousin." Achilles called, and Patrocles took a deep breath before jumping out of his fighting stance and furiously starting to rub his arm.

"Come sit with us." Achilles invited and Patrocles seemed undecided for a moment, but then his eyes caught sight of Briseis and the interest in them sparkled. He smiled and sat himself down cross legged, right in front of Briseis, looking at her straight in the eye with a smile.

"Hello." He said openly, and she could not help but stare at him a little blankly.

Achilles rolled his eyes at his cousin's open stare of her, but could not help the smile on his face when Patrocles eagerness turned to confusion because of the Priestess' blank and cold appraisal of his person.

"My cousin, Patrocles." Achilles said as caught her eye. "Cousin, I introduce you to Briseis of Troy."

Achilles' voice sounded droll, but Patrocles was anything but bored. He seemed animated all of a sudden, as much as so as he'd been when fighting with the soldier before.

"The Apollonian priestess, I heard. Have you ever met Prince Hector, Briseis of Troy? What does he look like?"

Briseis looked at the boy for a moment trying to decide whether or not this boy was better with a biting answer or simply ignored. She was inclined towards ignoring him, but then again, why should she? He was just a boy. It was almost a shame that he were here, those childlike blue eyes seemed as misplaced as she was.

"All of Troy knows Prince Hector and all of Troy loves him." Briseis said calmly.

"Do _you_ love him?" The boy asked mischievously, and she looked at him so long and hard that he lost part of the silly grin on his face, and looked over at his cousin a couple of times, when her answer started delaying. Achilles said nothing.

"He is my Prince. One day he will be my king." Briseis said and her tone was as sharp as a sword, her spine straight and looking at the boy unflinchingly. "He will always have my love and not only because of who he was born as, but because he is worthy of it – which is not something I can say for the king that leads this army."

At this the boy flinched, but glared at her none the less.

"Agamemnon is the king that will raze you city to the ground. You should show more regard for him now that you're a slave in his army."

"I am a free woman of Troy, _boy_." Briseis hissed as she stood, looking down at him. "My regard is to be earned, and not to be wasted on pigs."

"How _dare_ you!" but Patrocles' shock was more evident than his anger. Still, Briseis went on, not caring that she was running her words over his.

"I have met your king, I have seen how he treats those who serve him and how he treats those he thinks are below him. If that is the best Greece has to offer, I must say, I pity the fate of the fifty thousand souls he has brought on Trojan shores."

And with that she turned and stomped inside Achilles' tent, not even giving Patrocles the chance to retort, but just stare at her with his mouth agape.

"Well... I can see why you like her my friend. She despises Agamemnon almost as much as you do and is even less reserved about it than you are."

Achilles smiled but did not turn when he heard Odysseus voice behind him.

"Odysseys." He greeted and got up to join his friend in a walk.

Patrocles was still staring at the tent's entrance in shock. "Why would you allow her to speak that way?" He asked his cousin. Achilles smirked wider.

"Why wouldn't I? She has her own mind, I like to hear her speak it."

"She just offended our king!"

"_Our_ king?" Achilles repeated, one eyebrow raised.

"And that is why he likes her even more, eh." Odysseus dared, smiling at his friend, deviating Achilles from that particular subject. Patrocles seethed and Achilles reached shake hands with his friends as they walked away from his tent and towards the centre of the camp.

"Has she been hurt?" Odysseys asked. It was a delicate way of assessing Achilles' frame of mind after letting him simmer for a few days. Odysseys knew better than to outright push Achilles into a discussion without knowing his mood first. As all other fierce creatures, Achilles was to be treated with caution: asses validity of cooperation before approaching any subject for discussion.

"Not as badly as those who hurt her." Was Achilles dry response and the king left it at that. He'd decided since before that he would not ask Achilles to come back to the front until he'd had the girl for himself… In all honesty he had been surprised to see her in her priestess robes again this morning, but he realized he should not have been.

Achilles had too much pride to prove his strength against those who could not defend themselves. He should have known that the Golden warrior who prized so much his honor would not force himself on a defenseless girl.

Patrocles was still huffing at his side, frowning every now and then at the tent where the Trojan Priestess had hid into. Achilles chuckled. He threw an arm around his cousin, drawing the boy towards him.

"What do you expect cousin? We are here to invade her land, kill the men, rape the women, throw the babies from the city walls... and you expect her to show love for the Greeks? Would you show love and obedience to the king of an invading army?"

Patrocles seemed to resist at first, but the relented, seeing the truth in his cousin's words.

"I would show him the pointed end of my sword." The boy ground out, the fight had run out of him. He could not be as accepting as Achilles towards the slave's attitude, or her impudence for that matter, but he could understand why she would feel the way she did.

Still, the _nerve_ she had for speaking so freely was another matter… but she was Achilles problem, not his. Why his cousin seemed to be so fascinated by a woman who spoke out of turn and did not know her place was a mystery to him though. Or perhaps not, Patrocles reasoned.

After all, Achilles had never been an ordinary man. Of course he would not desire an ordinary woman.

oOoOo

When he entered his tent he found her standing at one side of it, a dagger in her hand. Their eyes met and then she turned to stare at the other end of the tent for only a moment, before throwing the knife. The dagger ebbed itself in the wood just barely. She did not have much strength of arm… but she did have a good aim.

When she looked at him, her eyes smoldered with repressed anger. Briseis walked back to dig out the knife from the wood.

"Good aim. Bad stance." He commented, leaning against the tent's frame.

Briseis went to sit at the corner that she had carved for herself, the one where she had slept the first night.

"My stance is fine. It's your dagger that is not balanced for this kind of use." She said flatly.

"Are the women of Troy also taught how to use men's weapons?"

She looked at him straight in the eye. "Are the women of Greece not?"

"No." he said and there was laughter around the word.

"Well, perhaps they should be." Briseis deadpanned, eyes alive with challenge. "To protect themselves from Greek men."

A smirk was his only response.

There were a few moments of silence between them and for the first time, it was she who broke it. She spoke softly at first.

"In Troy, it is considered unladylike to use weapons. Our delicate hands are not made for '_such coarseness'_."

It was as if she was repeating someone else's words, perhaps a person who'd frowned upon her ever picking up a knife for any other purpose other than cutting her meat.

"But after a rather unfortunate accident, my cousin decided that I should learn how to use a dagger early and carry one with my person at all times… just in case, he always said to me."

Hector had not listened to her protests of course, that as a girl meaning to become a priestess of Apollo, she could not take a life. He'd always thought that he'd rather have her a dishonored priestess and _alive_, than anything else.

Would Hector have her be alive now? After being kept in a Greek war camp?

Briseis did not know.

"A man after my own heart. Did he teach you himself?"

"He did."

"He must care for you a great deal."

His words were said simply, plainly… as were hers.

"As much as you care for your own cousin I suppose."

"That is different: I watch over Patrocles, he has no one but me. The love I have for him is stronger than that reserved for a cousin. He is my responsibility."

Briseis looked at him for a moment, trying to decide wether she should say anything or not. She decided she might as well...

"Are you grooming him to be your heir?" She asked and for the very first time, when he looked at her he was truly surprised. She had managed to pull the rug from under his feet thoroughly, in a way _very _few people ever had.

"What makes you say that?" He asked slowly, as a frown made its way on his brow.

Briseis shrugged, thinking back at the conversations she had heard between them these past few days.

"You raised him, you teach him, you love him. You council him the way a father does a son... And you brought him here, even though he is too young to fight. You want him to see what war looks like, feels like."

He watched her for a few moments, expression unreadable.

"Do you think it's working? Is he understanding?" He asked, startling her with his question. For a moment her mind came up blank, she did not know how to answer him, possibly because she cold not understand why he was asking.

Briseis decided to be honest.

"He is too young to fully understand half the things you say to him. He is too young to know that he will die one day and there is nothing glorious about it. Until he understands that, he will know nothing, not truly."

Again, his eyes showed her his surprise and then darkened with something else... something that made Briseis shiver, because it was very much like anger. His lips thinned and he turned swiftly and made to exit his tent, but in the middle of the motion he stopped, then slowly righted himself and stayed that way, his back to her. Then he turned and deliberately walked to her, crouching at her level.

For a moment Briseis was afraid, because she knew she'd said something he had not liked at all... but the moment she saw his face, the fear abated. The anger was gone from him as if it'd never been and there was something almost like softness in his eyes as he spoke to her - calmly, gently.

"That is a harsh truth, meant to be learned through shedding blood, both yours and of other men. Not meant for boys with innocent hands... or young princesses with pure hearts."

As he looked at her, Briseis felt as if he was trying to open her up, look inside her. As if he wanted the universe to give him the answer of this puzzle that was her – Briseis – made of pieces he did not seem to understand.

"You are as young as he is, as guiltless as he is..."

He did not voice his question, but it was there in his eyes.

_How come you know that truth reserved only for those who know death intimately?_

"I have had a different life." Briseis said calmly... then smiled, thinking back at all the days she had spent running around after Hector in the castle, at how much time she spent with Andromache, and how she went to her cousin for everything, as if he were her father, mother, sister, brother, all in one.

It had always been that way to her.

"But in some ways your cousin and I are similar: My parents died when I was too young to remember their faces. My uncle took me in his home, loved me as a daughter. But it was my cousin who watched over me the same way a father would."

Briseis looked at him with a smile and he almost returned it. "Patrocles and I have that in common: the great love of our cousins."

Achilles didn't speak, but he smiled gently and when his hand reached out to touch her hair, push it away from her face, she did not flinch, even though her expression sobered fast.

He was a killer, a destroyer.

But he was capable of love, it was so plain when he looked at his cousin. He could laugh, probably he could also cry, hurt and feel everything any other man felt. He was a _man_, beneath all the frightening legends of him he was as mortal as she was. Beneath all the strength and savagery in battle, he could bleed also... Perhaps he was better than most men, because he had shown her kindness and treated her with respect, even when he did not have to. Even with the odds so completely against her…

Who was this person?

"You don't treat me like a slave." Briseis knew it was supposed to be a question, though not in those words. The question was _why_. A tear escaped, one that she swiped away angrily, irritated with its presence.

"No, I don't. And I won't." He drew his hand back, watched her. His words were so definite that she had to ask, had to understand.

"Why don't you?"

Achilles looked at her for a few moments before answering, as if taking in the sight of her.

"Whether here on this beach, in the gardens of Troy, or at the end of the world, we cannot be anything but what we are. And you could never be a slave."

When she looked away this time, he did not think she did it to spite him. He'd seen the shimmer of tears in her eyes, respected that she did not want to show weakness in front of him. When he extended his hand towards her, she looked at it in question. Her face was dry of tears, even though her eyes shined.

When he spoke, he did so softly.

"Come Briseis of Troy, walk with me."

Her hand sliding against his felt soft and small and when he wrapped his fingers around it, it covered hers with room to spare. But he kept his hold gentle, allowing her to take her hand back if she wanted.

She didn't draw back.


	8. Mercy of war

"_To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss." ― Khmer Rouge _

" _Mercy is defined by its giver. Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able to love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us." ― Susan Meissner, The Shape of Mercy_

**THE MERCY OF WAR**

Briseis spent most of her time among the wounded. The Greek healer, an old man that reminded her a little about her uncle, had taken a liking to her, especially because Briseis had told him about a particular flower of blue petals that if boiled could ease pain. At first the old man had been suspicious, but when Briseis had taken a sip of the boiled substance herself, he had been assured and given it to the men.

It was dishonest was it not, to help her enemy? They all deserved to die painfully, did they not? Well, didn't they?

They were her enemies… but…

Briseis was an acolyte, soon to be an apollonian priestess (or so she had been), it was her moral duty to ease their pain and she felt the weight of shirking her duties get heavier and heavier every time she did nothing. They were her enemy, yes. By helping them she would help them kill her countrymen… but they were either dying, or well on their way to healing. Easing their pain made no difference to Troy. She simply could not stand hearing their moans and whimpers every time she walked through the camp.

She did that now, walk around the encampment, in the surrounding areas – never set a toe outside the Myrmidons' camp though.

Achilles' men did not bother her. At first they averted their eyes from her whenever she walked by, but they became familiar with her quickly because she was always at the side of the camp's healer when the old man did his rounds, handing him ointments, mixing powders for him, knowing what he wanted before the old man requested it – which greatly impressed him as well. They got used to the almost-always-silent girl dressed in white robes, sweet and beautiful as a vision, who spoke gently to the wounded to keep them awake as she put fresh cloths on their forehead to cool their fever, be there so that they wouldn't die alone.

Those that lived though, swore she was not of this world. That death herself sweetened in front of her face and gave in, relented.

Briseis tried not to flinch at those words. Tales of feverish men were always so strange…

She even got along with Achilles, with whom she had conversations from time to time. He sat down with her every now and then, at the edge of the sea far from the camp and its noises and spoke with her about anything that he might like to speak of. Sometimes she even made him laugh.

Briseis had not asked him why his men did not fight… from what she'd overheard, she could gather that the king had offended him greatly and not yet apologized. Not that she minded. Divisions in the Greek camp would only favor Troy.

The most Achilles touched her was catching a lock of her hair when the wind blew it on her face, and slowly tucked it behind her ear. It was not coincidence that the tips of his fingers brushed by the skin behind her ear every now and then, but she'd stopped jumping when he did it. Now she just stared at him with wide eyes, and sometimes he smiled at her doe-eyed look… the expression on his face could have been almost sweet.

Briseis was on the point of thinking that perhaps she had been wrong, perhaps Cassandra had been wrong about this war and her destiny in it.

And then, on the tenth night of her captivity, something happened that knocked her down again six feet underneath herself.

Briseis had been sitting in solitude by the waves, feeling the cold water washing her feet, when she heard it. The commotion was faint but distinct against the silence that usually reigned at nightfall in the Greek camp. It sounded like people moving, shouting. The noise came from the myrmidon camp and Briseis was caught, not knowing what to do. It only lasted a few moments, then the voice settled down so she figured she could go back now. It was never too safe to linger in the dark alone even though she found peace in the darkness and the solitude that those moments provided.

But when Briseis got back into camp, she saw five men lined on the sand, kneeling, hand and feet bound as the myrmidons patrolled in front of them, swords drawn. Achilles was standing in the middle of them, still as a statue, coiled like a spring as the long robe flowed about him, brushed by the sea breeze.

His bronze sword glinted in the moonlight.

Briseis found herself lost for words and confused… until she saw the robes the men bound at Achilles feet were wearing and recognition flooded snapped at her like a slap. She felt her knees weaken, her heart knowing what was happening even though her brain did not fully comprehend. The one Achilles was talking to spoke… and his fluent Trojan pierced Briseis' ears like a dagger, not because of the vile words he said but because of how long it had been since she'd heard it. It felt like a lifetime and she instantly hated Greek.

Briseis did not even have the chance to speak before Achilles brought down his sword with a swift strike and tore the man's throat out. His myrmidons followed without the barest hesitation. The scream choked in her throat.

There were hands that gripped her but her strength chose that moment to come to her and Briseis struggled. She fought and released herself from whoever it was keeping her. Whoever it was, the hold was not meant to cage her… just to steady her, but Briseis could not tell the difference at that moment.

She walked towards him the same moment he turned in her direction… and stilled only momentarily, tracking her movement like a hawk tracks prey as she wrapped her hand around the hilt of one of the swords in her path and dug it from the sand.

Achilles put up a hand to stop his men. She did not see them scatter at their master's command, did not hear them mutter, did not see their heads turn, feet itching to linger.

His eyes held hers, but her eyes were on the Trojan men whose blood was soaking the sand.

"I almost forgot… I _let_ myself forget…" her whispers was so faint, he barely heard. She was not crying, could not. The grief had calcified in her chest, it was making it hard to even breathe.

Briseis brought her sword up, gripped it with both hands testing its weight, balancing herself. "…why you're here."

"Don't." He warned through tightly gritted teeth.

"Why not?" was her instant response.

The whisper died between them as she swung the sword to him. With a move of his wrist he put his sword in front of him and the weapons crashed. The metal screeched. She hit as hard as he could but it did not faze him at all. She did not expect it to. She just hit as fast as she could as hard as she could not even really remembering Hector's teaching about balance and weight, about taking your anger and steadying your breathing.

She didn't really want to fight.

She just wanted him to kill her.

So it came to nobodies' surprise when he hit her sword with his so hard that the repercussion of the blow almost broke her wrist and the weapon fell from her hand. A second later she felt the cold bite of metal against her soft throat and his chest against her back.

It surprised him that she completely relaxed just as he put the blade at her neck. That was when he knew this wasn't some fit of anger.

He didn't move any further.

"Do it." She hissed and he tightened his hold on her wrist. The pain went shooting up her arm.

"Don't push me girl." The threat in his voice was as tangible as the sword at her throat.

"You're a _warrior_, aren't you? Killing is what you do, isn't it?" She pushed up against his blade and felt her skin tear, a rivulet of blood sliding down, staining her white robe.

But the blade went away from her neck altogether and in a moment he turned her and then pushed her away from him. Briseis fell in the sand, and turned to look at him above her.

In the silence of the night, in the light of the fire, he looked even more fierce than death itself. Briseis was not afraid. How she hated him!

How she hater _herself_ for being stupid enough to believe him!

"You won't kill girls but you kill defenseless men?"

Her voice fell flat. He walked towards her and she did not flinch away. She made to get up and she did, straightening her spine and holding his eyes with challenge, unafraid of the cold fury in his blue ones that made him look even more heartless. His fingers wrapped around her neck so swiftly that she almost didn't see it.

The heartbeat beneath his fingers did not falter, did not flutter. She was as steady as the rocks beneath the sand… he knew what she wanted, and was not about to give it to her that easily.

His face neared hers, only an inch separating them.

"Don't _ever_ attack me again. Next time I won't be so forgiving." He whispered and let her go turning away and walking inside his tent. Briseis stood there for a moment before her knees failed her. She collapsed as if someone had cut her legs from under her. She wished she could cry, but no tears came and the hold of pain was strong on her throat, stronger and tighter than his hand had been around it not a moment ago.

The silence of the night felt deeper. The hand on her shoulder burned, she flinched away with a hiss.

"Briseis…" the gentleness of Patrocles' voice was so tender that she almost broke against it. So strange that a gentle hand should break her when Achilles with his sword at her throat, drawing blood did not even make her breathe differently. She was unafraid of death. She had been acquainted with it for a long time and not she had learned to live at its doorstep, waiting for its final embrace and learning not to fear it, not to regret it… She was trying to learn how to let go of life, but in doing that Briseis had gotten so far away from the world of the living that the barest brush with it threatened to turn her upside down.

She could not afford to feel again as a living person would.

She was afraid of all those feelings she had hid in the dark, pushed away.

"This is war Briseis, they were sentinels send to spy on us. If Achilles had let them go to the commander, Agamemnon would have tortured them, flayed them until the meat ripped from bone and hung them before Troy's gates… as he has done before."

Her tears finally exploded… but she was gasping so hard she could not really cry. There were few tears and too much anguish, too much choking and gasping. The world was touching her again, here in the middle of a death camp, where she had methodically taught herself to be numb.

She was feeling again and _gods_, it hurt to the brick of madness!

"I'm sorry you had to see that. He was sorry you saw that too." The boy spoke softly, she cried harder, but her outburst was over in a moment, just as suddenly as it had come and she was left there, breathing hard and fast and barely remembering herself. Her feelings went as soon as they came…

But guilt remained.

Shame remained.

None of them she could understand, she just felt them drive a hole in her chest, pull her under.

The blood on the sand remained.

She was calm now, but when Patrocles told her to go inside and take some rest, she shook her head, gathered her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

War.

This is war Briseis.

And in war even good men kill and get killed. There was not a war where innocents did not die by the thousands. Had she just witnessed an act of mercy? Was this mercy in a time of war?

Where was she? Had she been lost to some underworld she did not know? She had been prepared for her own death, but was she prepared to witness the deaths of countless of her people? Could she stand to stay here, alive, at the hands of the man that would undoubtedly kill more of her people than she could imagine? How could she live with herself knowing she could have done something to stop him?

Briseis almost snorted. What could _she_ do? Achilles, the undefeated warrior… he was not made to be ended by the hands of one such as her.

But she could wait. She could wait until he slept, until he was not Achilles anymore, but just another man asleep in his bed, and she could slice a knife across his throat. She could be a coward if it meant saving the lives of her people he would surely kill in time. What good was her pride, her beliefs in her gods, her very soul… in the face of all the lives she could save.

She could wait…


	9. Evolve

AN_: thank you to my reviewers for your words and your time reading this story and a thank you to _Lauren_ for suggesting I correct the grammar mistakes in the title and summary - which i hadn't even noticed I'd made (on this note, i apologize for any mistakes in grammar and spelling you might find, i am aware that i make many). I decided to write another summary entirely, on a whim :P_

On a note of warning_: this is an **M-Rated** chapter. I tried to be as delicate as i could with the description, seeing that it is in character to do so because most of it is from Briseis' POV, but still, be warned._

_oooo_

"Nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart. Only after disaster can we be resurrected. It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything. So I say you have to give up! I say _evolve_, and let the chips fall where they may!" ― Chuck Palahniuk,

**EVOLVE**

Briseis waited.

She waited until the night grew deep and quiet and the only sound was the men marching on guard duty and the fires crackling. The moon shone full and unashamed in the sky, almost as if to spite her, to remind her of the blood still there on the sand. With every moment she waited Briseis felt herself slip away, deeper into the kind of darkness that had nothing to do with the cloak of the night.

When she was sure that hours had passed and he would be asleep, she slipped inside the tent, silent as a ghost. The dagger in her hand weighted so heavily on her that it was almost too hard to move, the coldness of the metal spreading all the way to her heart...

She watched him from the entrance of the tent, watched his sleeping form, so easily discernible by the firelight, the covers almost indecently low on his naked hips. But Briseis was past being embarrassed. She stood there watching him for what felt like hours… and with every moment she watching him her resolve grew, just as her spirit shattered. She felt herself falling apart on the inside, her pieces scattering around her in the sand, shed and left forgotten with every step she took towards him.

She knelt by his low pallet of animal skins, looked at him, at that face that had been her torment all these days. He had turned her world upside down, everything she had ever thought she knew had shattered in front of this new life she was living. There was truth in this life as there had been truth in the one she'd lived until now... but here, at the foot of his pallet, she had to decide.

Decide how was she going to live the last days of her life. What would she say to the god of the underworld when she stood before him? Would she say that she had been a traitor to her city and her family? Or would she say she had been a traitor to herself...

Her fingers felt numb around the blade in her hand. As a Trojan her hand stood firm, her anger burned bright, her righteousness screamed inside her… but she felt she was betraying the Briseis that lay beneath the Trojan woman.

He was her captor, he was her torment, he was the killer of her people... and he had been her savior. The same man. He was a killer... but _she_ was the one standing over him with a blade in her hand, prepared to take his life as he slept, defenseless and unknowing of her treacherous nature. When he killed, his enemy saw him in the brightness of daylight, with a sword in their hands and fair warning given. It was war and he killed because the man in front of him was seeing to do the same.

She was killing him in his bed, in his sleep...

Her hand shook and Briseis felt the tears of shame eat at her, but she did not let them fall. She could not.

Briseis thought about the priests she had seen die in the temple, about the soldiers dragging her back and forth, about hands groping so hard they'd bruised and about the blood in the sand, or the blood of hundreds of men that the daily battles before the gates of Troy caused. All those men, dead. In her sleep, Briseis herd the screams of their mothers, sister, wives...

All the pain... At the face of it, everything else dusted, only pain remained and Briseis felt consumed with the need to scream it out. She thought about Cassandra's words so long ago, of death and misery… and found she felt nothing. It did not matter anymore.

_Death has made you brave_, she realized and saw herself standing before the bed of a killer, ready to take his life (and the figure there, knelt in front of that bed seemed a stranger, someone she did not know - but so _familiar_ at the same time, as if she'd always known that _this_ was where she would come to be. _This_ was her destiny, here, beside his pallet, with a dagger in her hand, ready to decide...).

_Death has made you reckless_.

Perhaps finally facing her destiny was making her into someone she had not known she was, but also someone she had always been destined to be. Not a princess or a queen, not a priestess... but a murder.

Did it matter that she hated him, that it was right to hate him? That her Trojan blood boiled to kill him, but her inner self even now, after everything she'd been put through, shied away from the very act that made him so hateful to her? Did it matter that she hated everything in this camp, including this man, but she hated the war even more?

Even bereft and destroyed, was she able of being a murdered, of taking a life? The answer was in her aching heart... even though she refused to accept it. But the harder she pushed at the truth, the harder it came back to hit her in the face. This was inescapable. She _had_ to do it.

_Go ahead then_, the Briseis in her sneered. _Kill him - slid the blade across his soft throat and take his life. Take what you have no right to take!_

Killing him like this, in cold blood and dishonor was not just a sin against against the gods - it would be a sin against every law of decency and truth she had ever been taught to hold sacred.

But what would letting him life make her?

Who should she betray first?

_What does it matter_, she snarled at herself and made her conscience and soft heart cower away before the bulk of that anger that had strengthened her resolve. As if she was standing behind herself, Briseis saw the dagger come to his throat, without making contact with his flesh. Her hand was steady, her eyes cold.

"Do it."

The harsh words echoed in the tent and Briseis was ripped from her inner turmoil (oh, the liberation!) and looked down on him just as he opened his eyes. He did so slowly, the hint of blue beneath his lids just a whisper, before he turned his head to look at her full in the face. The irony that he was hissing her own words back to her was not lost on Briseis.

Had he known her mind all along? Or was he really that much of a light sleeper?

(_nothing like a cold blade pressing at your throat to jolt you awake_, she thought derisively. She had been a fool to hesitate. But perhaps he would put eh rout of her misery and kill finally kill her.)

"Nothing is easier." He urged again, this time his eyes firmly taking hold of hers. Not even a muscle of him moved as they held each others looks: his cool with indifference and alight with challenge, hers more hollow than he'd ever seen them.

"Aren't you afraid?"

Her voice fell flat in the silence of the tent, even the cracks of the fire threatening to drown her out. He could have told her that he was as unafraid of death as she seemed to be. She even seemed enamored with it - any sane man who knew Achilles would have said so if they saw see her holding a knife at his throat as he slept.

It was the second time she invited death at his hands in one night. He was starting to believe she truly wanted to die...

"Every mortal dies. Today or fifty years from now, what does it matter in the face of eternity?"

The dead emptiness in her eyes suited her ill, he though, as if it never belonged there. He could see it in her: the call to her own end, the recklessness of the damned, of those that long to be lost, to be taken from everything...

Well, if oblivion was what she wanted, oblivion was what he would give her. He would pull her under and trap her in his world, where she had to suffer no longer, because there would be no need.

She seemed so steady as she looked at him, so cold, but that hollowness in her eyes gave her away: she was a breath away from shattering.

"You'll kill more men if I don't kill you."

"Many." He validated instantly.

He'd never denied who he was, why should he? Briseis saw with the corner of her eyes his arms slowly coming up, gripping her shoulders in a bruising hold, and brought her even closer, pushing the blade in his neck even harder against his flesh.

"Do it!" And this time it was an order given thought gritted teeth.

With his words something in her eyes shifted and within her so desolate expression, her eyes pulsed with pain so fresh it was like touching a raw, exposed nerve. The crudity of her feelings made his fingers twitch and his chest tighten; he felt as if she had seared her eyes into his very being as she looked at him so unguarded, as exposed as she was unafraid... surrendered to her own fate, embracing it.

With a movement so fluid it caught her by surprise, Achilles snatched that moment of hesitation and Briseis felt the world spin. The next moment she was not over him any more – _he_ was over her, eyes prodding inside her and even though her knife was still at his throat, she had never felt more powerless, never more lost than in this moments.

_We will never be here again_.

It was true. She believed now. She knew that this would be the last stretch of life she would ever live, the last days of her life... and when her time before the God of the Underworld came, she would tell him that she had been true to herself to the end. That she had lived and loved and followed her heart and compassion and all else that was good. That she had chosen life _always_ – even when it was unwise, even over pain, and anger, and honor. She would tell the God of the Underworld that she had lived, and feared nothing but the emptiness of a life wasted.

For such a long time she had feared so much. But Hector had always been right: _Take whatever you can out of life, because it's over much too soon_...

Those words had never sounded more true than now.

Everything else was shadows and dust.

Her eyes were wide and round as she looked at him with a thousand emotions running around, making her shake. She felt his hands move away from her arms, not pinning her down anymore but rather supporting his own weight as he moved over her, fluid like a wave, his thigh burning its heat against hers as it slid between hers, making room for himself slowly, just as he stretched his neck towards her, his brow barely brushing against hers, warm breath making her lips tingle.

(there was not even a question in her mind of why was she letting him. All the questions were gone from her... Briseis thought back at the pieces of herself scattered around the tent, the pieces she had thrown away before kneeling by his pallet.

_Briseis no more…_)

The knife's edge bit his throat mercilessly, the thrill of its cold bite sending his blood boiling – the same blood that flowed steady even in the heart of battle rushed to his ears now, making him blind and deaf to everything but her.

The first kiss he gave her was supposed to be sweet, to ease her out of shock and trepidation, to sooth the pain with something sweeter… but once he was on her lips – parted as they were because she was panting shallowly - he could not help the tongue that sneaked out of his mouth to taste her deeper. He felt her shaky breath as it left her, felt the reverberations of her shudder in the in blade she was holding, felt it in the shake her soft body, the tremble of her so delicious against him that it pushed inside him to take, to devour.

But he didn't. He'd waited too long for her to come to him on her own will to ruin it for impatience… even though she stirred the blood in him so hot he felt afire, and heavy with a desire so strong it might overthrow them both.

He hadn't felt this kind of hunger in a long time.

His lips pressed against her a little harder than before, still tasting her as before (because the taste of her was too heady to resist), but still softly, still shallow and she whimpered as if he'd hurt her. But he knew he hadn't.

Her hurt was of another nature - she was at war with herself and it was causing her pain, so he kissed her again softly, trying to coax her lips into responding to him, being here with him. The tear that slid from beneath her closed lids fell towards her temple just as the blade slid away and clattered somewhere on the ground... and her lips softened, moved into his, kissing back.

He had not imagined how intense her tongue would feel, so tentative against him as she learned how to kiss him; or how much the way she touched him differed from her insecure kisses - she touched him the same way she spoke to him: at her ease, at her leisure, savoring him with only a tiny hint of anger made known by the tips of her blunt nails making their mark on his arm.

The glaring contradictions of her… They made him close down on her even more, free her legs from her robe completely and settle his whole weight over her (and found her so lusciously smooth, so absolutely bare and sleek that it made him groan at the back of his throat), trying to sink his whole body into her softness the way he sunk into her warm mouth. She shook, trembled like a leaf and moaned and he knew she was there with him, drowning in his passion, getting lost in it. Being taken and enjoying it.

The feeling went to his head, making it spin.

Nothing she did to him inspired patience; all of her, her scent, her taste, her every move, her every sigh (the way she awakened under him, opening her mouth wider, her kisses bolder by the moment, hissing at the feel of him between her legs, so foreign, so heady… trembling hands going over his shoulders, gripping the hair at the base of his neck almost violently as she tried to keep up with his lips, tried to hold him still so that she could kiss him back) _all_ of her, encouraged passion, fueled aggression.

It was only because of his iron will that he kept himself at bay. Because despite the thick fog in his brain, he also knew that she was meant to be savored slowly first... and devoured after, when she could understand it that way, enjoy it.

So he eased his weight off her a bit, his hand going to tangle in her hair, thumb smoothing down her cheek as he ease off her lips and opens his eyes to look at her. She still has her eyes closed, breathing hard and fast, lips parted and swollen. Her eyes snapped open when his thumb smoothed down her lips and her stare hit him so hard, in intensity in her eyes matched the one he felt.

Her hands stilled on his shoulders, looking at him as he looked at her, trying to see what he saw. She felt his hand under her thigh, pulling it up, bending her leg at the knee, and hooking it around his hip – Briseis ran the bottom of her foot against the back of his thigh, up and down, wanting to feel him, and the tingle inside her intensifying and spreading, making her shiver on the inside, as the soft skin of the inside of her thighs rubbed against this hip - and saw the look in his eyes change, shift, the hand in her hair tighten.

His parted lips were made to be kissed, she thought as his hand moved upwards and pushed her robe up further. Briseis moved to allow him to remove it entirely, arched to make it easier, but the movement caused her to shift against him in a way that made her gasp sharply and vibrate as if she'd been struck. It caused him to make a strange noise deep in his chest and she _felt_ the shiver that ran down his spine because somehow it made its way through her chest and settled inside her loins with an acuteness so sharp and hot that it made her cry out – the feel of him was too much to bear and not nearly enough at the same time. Closer than anyone had ever been, yet not close enough to stop that pain so sweet.

Her fire only burned more brightly and unconsciously, without even known she was moving, her hips pushed up, rubbing against him again, wanting to feel that pain again as if his fire could ever put out hers. In her head it did not make sense, but her body knew what it wanted with a clarity that was blinding to everything else. Briseis inhaled sharply and she turned her head away with a small cry, biting her lip as she felt him move against her again...

His palm spread against her hips, stilling her almost harshly and she felt the weight of his forehead against the side of her face, the burn of his open-mouthed kisses on her jaw. Her head fell back against his pillow with a groan.

"What are you doing to me?" She breathed out, accusatory, sounding as if she was in pain. His strained chuckle gave her no answer.

"Look at me." His whisper made her open her eyes and his was so close – brow weighting down gently over her own, lips barely brushing hers, blue surrounding her, the color dark, rich… infinite…

He moved again and this time it was deliberate, he controlled it, anticipated it. The burn of her against him made him almost see red, but he focused on the expression on her face, on the sounds she made. She closed her eyes, nails sinking on his shoulder.

"_Look_ at me." And this time the whisper was breathless, as much as hers was – though hers was saturated heavily with irritation as well as winded passion.

"Stop toying with me."

Achilles would have laughed of a feeling that was very much alike to happiness, but it was eclipsed by the fire in his blood… and what she did next: Briseis reached up, caught his bottom lip with her teeth just as she wrapped both legs around his hips, effectively stopping the movements that had felt like torture and pulling him flush to herself, for a moment feeling all the weight of him on top of her because his arms had given out.

And he fell on her with a kiss so heavy that she could not think, his hands everywhere making her burn, writhe. She was so lost that she notice the pain only when it was so sharp it stole her breath away.

She turned her head away, biting her lip to keep the whimper in. She felt almost as coiled as his muscles felt under her palms. He moved again and she looked at him, the hurt showing in her eyes, hints of betrayal at its heel.

She was met with eyes cut from deep blue sea, darker than she'd ever seen them. His hands roaming her body, open paled and greedy for the feel of her made her uncoil, even though the burn inside her returned every time he moved… even though every time, it hurt less… until it stopped hurting and it started being something else.

He noticed the change in her before she did. She moved with him, tried to instinctively follow him body as it found a rhythm, her hands moved to touch him, learning him, scratching him, mouth searching his, biting and kissing all she could reach of him… until she couldn't remember how to breathe anymore.

His name escaped from her lips, a question he had to answer.

_What are you doing to me…_

His response was a low moan that had her reaching for the back of his head, burying her long fingers in his golden hair, nails scraping his scalp. Her other hand was trapped in his, fingers woven though hers and she squeezed hard afraid she would fall somewhere and never come back.

His name passed though her lips again because now she was feeling it, the beginning of something momentous, spiraling inside her tightly, making every muscle she had (and those she didn't even know were there) contract in the kind of pain she had never felt before, something coiling inside with such force that she could hardly stand it without crying out. He was relentless over her, frenzied like a storm, his grip on her hand so hard she felt her bones bend but was grateful for it, his lips catching her cries, spilling his own in her mouth and it felt that he was there, there with her, through the coil. When she felt herself start shaking uncontrollably Briseis started being afraid, but his kiss left no room for anything but him - the feel of him, around her… inside her…

Just the _thought_ of it…

Her breath caught and she hid her face in the crook of his neck… bit him there to keep from screaming, making him ground into her with such force that she thought she would surely break. She could feel herself falling apart, splitting at the seams so hard that she saw lights dance behind her tightly shut lids… breaking apart in his hands… the fear was as pervasive as the unfathomable feeling itself.

Briseis leaned back, wanting his eyes, and she was not denied. His breathing was as harsh as her and their foreheads sleek with sweat as the rest of them, but when they rested together they held and he kept her there, there, and then threw her beyond…

For the first time Briseis trusted him… and just let herself tear, split at the seams expecting pain because the intensity of so much pleasure would surely break her in half...

But instead – she found she _flew_.

The fall felt endless, the rush indescribable. At one moment, the whole world was concentrated at the point of a needle – the next it exploded and unrolled throughout her, the ripples so intense she thought she would faint. She shook and made sounds she'd never through would ever come from her mouth, and she held on to him, wrapped her arms around him, and her legs around him, because he seemed to be the only real thing left, the only thing she could feel.

The world went so quiet and still afterward, and she had fallen somewhere in between dreams and awakening, and was resting there, blind and deaf to everything but the warmth that was still on top of her, making her shiver. Briseis kept shaking in his hold well after the fall had ended. Every now and then, a little tremor when through her.

She didn't know how long it took her to open her eyes, but when she did and looked to her left – his breaths coming steady and warm against her neck and ear - she found his head right by hers, blue eyes looking at her lazily, softly. He was laying half over her, half on his side, legs tangled, one heavy arm draped over her chest like a blanket. He was heavy, but so warm and so strangely welcome was the tangible reality of him now, as nothing had ever been welcome before.

That arm that had been draped over her coiled, his fingers coming to untangle her face from the hair that had stuck to it and then his fingers going to wrap themselves in the mass of undisciplined curls, bringing her close for a kiss so languid that it reminded her sharply of the feel of him just moments ago.

His hand moved from her hair to her throat, rough fingers caressing softly, tracing her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder, revealing in the smoothness of her skin as she learned of the shape and size of his hands without ever needing to see them.

Briseis didn't know when she fell asleep, but the last thing she remembered was the feel of his hand, the warmth of it, brushing down her side, tracing the dip of her waist, drawing patterns on her skin - as she used to do, in the wet beaches of Troy when she was a child…


	10. Beaneath

AN: The last chapter was about Briseis, this one is about Achilles. I hope I've done a good job portraying him. I didn't want him to be sappy, he is still a warrior and bringer of death, but he can love and he knows that, so... well, I'll let you guys be the judjes of characterisation.

OoOoO

"There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment."  
― Sarah Dessen, _The Truth About Forever _

**BENEATH**

He slept late that night, gladly exchanging his nightly dreams at the shores of river Stynks for the sight of her sleeping in his bed. A smile, small, almost imperceptible, but visible to him who had learned to read her expressions, had settled on her lips as sleep took over her. He'd pushed himself off her entirely and now lay on his side, watching, the noise of his thoughts had settled, as it hardly ever did, into an ignorable rumble at the back of his consciousness.

That silence, the calm that was so precious but so elusive for him, _that_ had been the last thing he remembered before he fell to sleep. He knew that at some point, he had fallen back to his dreams, but when he woke, he did not remember it, and for the first time in much too long a time, he did not feel the usual weight settle in his breast as soon as he opened his eyes… missing it was strange, so accustomed had he become to feeling the dead following him in his waking hours.

But instead of the heaviness of the underworld's call, he opened his eyes to see her face next to his and the smile came almost before he realized. The lightness he felt was such that he almost laughed at the sight of her (strange, ever so, that she could make him laugh so easily when he thought he forgot how to do it sometimes …): she was splayed in his bed as if she owned it, sleeping on her back, one arm over her stomach, the other draped across his chest, head askew on the pillow, and legs stretched at an awkward-looking angle, his dark silk sheets so tangled around those lean legs that it seemed as if she had been fighting a war with them (which was strange, seeing that he had not felt her move that much in the night. She slept very quietly and for that he was thankful, because his sleep was as light as a wild animals.) barely coming to cover her hips, leaving her small round breasts uncovered, the sight of them so pale and delicious, dusted with golden freckles instantly stirring him in different ways…

And he _still_ wanted to laugh, because it was so painfully obvious by the way she slept that she had never shared her bed with anyone before. His smile stretched and there was a hint of mischief there, as he thought of how much he would enjoy teaching her just _how_ to do that. Beneath his closed eyelids he could see it as clearly as if it was happening, all the ways in which he wanted her…

"What are you smirking about?" her sleepy whisper made him snap her eyes open and he found her bare back to greet him. She was on her stomach now, her face half hidden under the tumble of unruly curls, one hand under the pillow, the other fisted close to her mouth, hiding her lips. But he could make out one sleepy eye watching him.

How had she moved without him feeling it?

His '_smirk_' as she called it, stretched even wider as he stretched his limbs – perhaps, he answered himself, because his mind had been preoccupied otherwise. He reached out to push the curls off her face gently and tangle his fingers in her full hair, his thumb so softly brushing against her cheek… and the sleepiness in her eyes melted into something tender which reached, in turn, for something tender in him.

"I was thinking something pleasant." He said as his palm made its way down the slope of her back, eyes glinting with laughter like precious stones. Briseis huffed and turned her head away.

"I _know_ what you were thinking." She said snippily, but the tremble of laughter was too close to the surface for him not to notice. She shoved the pillow in his face and this time, his laughter sprang freer than she'd ever heard it and it made her smile. When she felt his arms reach out and pull her to him she struggled and squealed and laughed, but there was no escape from his grip that, though gentle, was very much unbreakable.

Briseis found herself with the side of her face pressed against the soft furs and him lying on her back, pressing kisses against the back of her neck and shoulders, sucking at her skin in such a way that made the laughter die in her throat and come out as a deep sigh. One of her hands found his hair and fisted in it, just as one of his found more interesting places…

"Don't you need me to turn around?" Briseis breathed out.

She felt his smile against the skin of lower back.

"No." He murmured against her flesh.

In a move so fluid he reminded her of water, his chest was pressed against her back again and his lips were at the skin just below her ear, leaving a kiss that was more tongue than lips as he laid on his side and pulled her with him. He pulled her earlobe in his mouth and sucked (and Briseis thought she could not really be responsible for the sound she made or how her body reacted, because she'd realized _he_ knew more things about her body than she did) just as his thigh - helped by his hand – pushed its way between hers and she could feel him against her, smooth and hard and hot, same way she'd felt him the night before (his breath hitched near her ear and his moan was as clear to her as the shiver that ran down her own spine). Briseis let go of his hair and fisted her hand in the furs because she did not want to tear those golden hair out, and she was afraid she might.

His hand did not move from her thigh, but the other went under her and around her waist, pulled her to him even more tightly.

"Are you just going to hold me then?"

Her voice was closer to a trembling moan than anything else, as was his.

"No."

The feel of her as he sheathed himself in her warmth took his breath away and somewhere in the back of his mind he tried to remember that he had to be gentle with her again because… of something he didn't really remember anymore… but in that moment she pushed against him hard and his hand tightened around her thigh to the point of bruising just as her legs tightened around his… her harsh breathing was louder in his ears than the loud flow of his blood that had silenced everything else but her.

His hand ran over the back of the thigh and pulled her leg up, giving himself more room to move and in the mean time moving just the same, and muffling his moan on the crook of her neck, feeling the way her pulse fluttered against his tongue. Her hand wrapped around his wrist hard enough to bend his bones when he touched her between her legs, making sounds that made him want to kiss her lips raw, if only he could reach it (and now he'd found the only un-commendable thing about this position…) He let her hold on to him… and pushed harder, held her tighter, needing to dissolve himself in her in such an absolute way that he could not seem to taste well enough, get close enough, go deep enough or fast enough or hard enough…

He did not know where this unprecedented need (that tasted of desperation more than he would like) came from, he was unfamiliar with it, did not know how to control it, how to understand it… but he did know he wanted her like he'd never wanted anything in his life, as if he'd never known what 'to want' even _meant_ until he'd wanted her. And that made him hold her tighter, push into her harder, kiss her wherever he could reach because her skin tasted sweet even though she was sleek with sweat, because she was the softest thing he'd ever touched and because she kissed him back like she wanted to get lost in him, the same way he kissed her, like a drowning man, because…

"Achilles…"

… because the whisper of his name rang in his ears louder than 50.000 men shouting it at the top of their lungs… and every time, _every_ time he wanted to answer with _yes_.

Yes, anything!

Yes, _everything_!

_Yes_, whatever you want!

He felt himself staring to unravel, from where he was inside her to the tip of his navel to the tips of his fingers, shooting up his back and making him rigid. And when she cried out, it went right through him, sharper than a spear, feeling her all around him, surrounding him, inside him… and he came so hard that his vision went blind with colors so bright he had to close his eyes against the crook of her neck and drown his groan there, as she held the back of his neck, nails biting on his flesh, drawing shivers up and down his spine… even after, when she dragged her fingers lazily through his hair, making him purr like a lion.

He didn't really know how long it was before she spoke again.

"Achilles…"

"Yes."

"You're smothering me a little."

The smile was in her voice, it was in the hand that caressed the side of his face ever so softly. He smiled too, wrapped both arms around her wispy waist and turned to lay on his back – taking her with him, loving the way her wild hair spread all around his face, soft as feathers of a bird.

Her head rested right over his heart and she chuckled brokenly.

"What?"

"As nice as this is… I have to say, you're not the most comfortable bed there is."

His only response was a hum that she felt beneath her shoulders as it rumbled. She liked the feeing, despite what she said.

"You're all hard ridges and jagged angles!"

Achilles smiled widely, the way he only did in front of people who knew him too well – possibly because she was not able to see him as he did so (but he knew he would have smiled the same way even if she had been looking). It was funny what she'd said to him, because in contrast, _she_ was the most comfortable blanked he'd had: all soft curves and smooth planes. His hands followed his thoughts and she chuckled again, feeling his touch from neck to breasts to ribcage, so slowly that she though he was counting her ribs, to waist (which he spun with both hands with room to spare) and hips, to as far enough against her thighs as he could reach, his touch always open-palmed, as if he was always greedy in the same measure.

"Are you never satisfied?" she murmured around a yawn.

He did not let up an inch. "Are you complaining?"

Briseis rolled off him to his side and without many ceremonies she borrowed his arm without his permission and made it her pillow and threw her leg over his hips and her arm around his chest to make herself more comfortable. He watched her with a smile he was trying to contain.

"Huh, not really. I like you, but I like sleep even better."

"It is daylight, my lady, sleeping hours are long gone." He murmured close to her ear as he too turned to his side, throwing his other arm around her, pulling her flush to him and kissing her long and slow and soft, tasting her lips at his leisure, inviting her tongue in his mouth and letting her do as she pleased (and she did please), feeling her soft breasts mold against his chest and the tantalizing smoothness of her inner thighs rub on his hips…

When she pulled from his lips, she did not go far, but her game had not been forgotten.

"Since you took my sleeping hours of the night, I am going to sleep during the day." And her tone was final, as if no more arguing was needed. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Who are you, the most spoiled daughter of Troy?"

Briseis huffed. "Oh, indeed, I'm the worst princess of them all. Wiser men would pity you."

Her murmur was soft against his chest and it amused him, but the pres of her lips right over his heart was even softer and cut his smile short, making him look down at her face, where she was already asleep, her breathing deep and steady. He looked at her for a long time, until the grey light of dawn turned rosy, before slowly removing himself from her gentle hold without disturbing her sleep.

He got up slowly and dressed unhurriedly, eyes never leaving her, got close to her so that he could cover her with his dark sheets, and just as quietly sipped from his wine-cup as he kept watching her and thoughts kept turning in his head.

She was back to sleeping on her back, curls wild about her, looking so very young and frail from where he was sitting, bruises fading, the cuts and her nose and eye almost completely healed. He can see a couple of new bruises – the most prominent one on her neck where he'd sucked at her skin as if he wanted to swallow her whole… He imagines she is not going to thank him for that, imagines how fun it's going to be to watch her take revenge.

Fun… that was not the word that Achilles would associate to sex, but this time it rang true. As with all things in his life, he took sex very seriously and for that reason he enjoyed it thoroughly, but it had never been about _fun_. It had been about fucking a woman that attracted him, about carnal pleasure, about release or even a way to vent frustration, about the most wicked things most men could imagine… It had been about many things and it had been worth every moment… but it had never been _fun_, not the way it was with… not the same way, not ever.

He'd never wanted to take everything and give everything the way he wanted now, he'd never before felt like laughing when he touched a woman, because she did something to make him laugh, never felt the light touch of happiness _she_ gave him, so foreign here in the middle of war.

Achilles keeps looking at her and he does not know what look he is wearing, but he can feel the tenderness in himself as he watches her, so unprecedented that for a moment he catches himself, wondering, _what are you doing?_

He feels a fool, charmed by a little girl just because she makes a little sense. It was not uncommon for men to get a little strange about women in times of war, but Achilles knew this was not it. Not even close. He had had wars before, many of them. He had had women before, many of them too. He had had women in times of war, but it had never felt as if… as if…

_What_ had she managed to do to him? And most importantly, _how_?

Achilles looked at her again, just before going out his tent. One look at her and he felt his feelings change, felt the pull inside himself tell him what this was, whispering the truth to him so low that nobody else could hear. That truth hid somewhere beneath his ribs and stayed there, tightly knotted within him, heavy and warm, pulsing ever so lightly to let him know it was there.

He hid it expertly, but it showed in the softness of his eyes when he turned to look at her once more before he left the tent.

He stopped wondering why she should effect him so. Why shouldn't she? She was a woman like no other, had caught his interest in a manner no other ever had and held it with the means no other ever could.

She was deserving of his every attention.

And though he wanted her in all ways he knew how to want, he also wanted her in foreign ways, in ways he'd never wanted before: he wanted her thoroughly in ways that had nothing to do with the body, he wanted her every thought, her every memory, her every breath… he wanted to consume her life fire and he wanted her to want him the same way, because of all the reasons above. He wanted her to every way a person can be wanted…

There was a strange urgency in him as he thought this over, that same anxiety that pushed him to be rough and to devour, to get closer and kiss harder just so he could do it all over again, and again, and again… This urgency was as real as his desire, because he knew it in his heart that his moments with her were numbered, and that she going to be his only for a brief time.

And now for the first time in his life, the present seemed not nearly enough. He could not be content with the present, because for the first time his mind went out to tomorrow too…


	11. To know you

_AN: Firts of all, thank you to allthose that have favorited, followed and reviewd this story. I would like to point out something: This story was meant to tell moments between Achilles and Briseis, so there is going to be a lot of dialogue between them, or scenes with only them in it, because that's what Im writing. I want to _try_ to fill that space from when they met to when he was willing to die for her with something that justifies that kind of intensity... there is a plot, but mostly, it's a character piece. You'll get to know them as they get to know each other._

_Anyway, sorry for the rampling. That was it. _

_I hope you like!_

_oOoO_

_OoOoO_

_"When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense."_  
― Kahlil Gibran

**TO KNOW YOU**

Briseis had been reluctant to get out of the tent that day. She eyes her discarded white robe, so carelessly thrown away that her heart ached at the sight of it, but it was not in regret. She _refused_ to regret anything. The very exercise of it was futile.

So she got up to look for the blue dress Achilles had given to her that first night and pulled the silken sheets around herself to cover. (why should she do that, she had no modesty to cover anymore, her snippy conscience told her – her every moment reminded her of it. She was achy in places she did not even know she _could_ hurt…)

"Oh shut up!" she hissed so low that the words were barely understandable even to her own ears. She was being so silly, letting herself be ruled by conventions that meant nothing here. _War_ was a different realm. It had nothing to do with the life she had always known… and that life - Briseis closed her eyes and took a deep breath – that life was gone and she was never getting it back again. All she had ever know was lost to her.

… so what did she have to lose anymore?

Having the reality of war shoved in her face as it had happened last night had almost broken her… it had made her lose all hope, stripped her from all she had been before and given her something else: the present. A present that was _finite_ – with a man who was so confusing and complex that thinking about him for too long made her hurt on the inside. But Briseis also had something else, something she had always had and that nobody could take away from her: she had always thought of it as a curse, but now it felt more like a comforting gift, a sharp knife wrapped in silk - She knew exactly when and how she was going to die.

It would not be too long now.

Before that knowledge had been the cause of sharp focus and dedication, it had been the source of an unconditional, unlimited, desperate love for life, a need to live as fully and acutely as possible. But now…

_Now_ with that definite knowledge came a liberating (if somewhat foreign) sensation of… not really caring about anything very much.

There had been a strange freedom in abandoning consideration of any and all consequences. Briseis had realized she did not have to fight, she did not even really want to. Why should she? In the face of the coldness and utter desolation of the underworld… who would care? Not even she did. With _everything_ taken from her, deciding to _give_ herself over was really the only way of asserting ownership of the only thing she had left: herself.

There had been more than only a tinge of self-destructive desire in that decision, but what did it matter? Ha, there it is again, the utter hopelessness that had made her abandon all logic. Briseis knew it must mean something was not quite right with her, but… she could not find it in her to care about that either.

She did not feel anything really.

But she'd felt… she'd _felt_ with him something that had taken her back from the edge of oblivion she had been standing on. She had been expecting him to finally push her over, break her. She had been wanting to be broken and destroyed… but he had pulled her with him, so gently really (a gentleness that had astounded her, shocked her into her own body again), so warmly pulled her down into layers of passion she had never even known existed, into a scalding world that burned away everything that hurt. Another shade of ruin was what Briseis had expected, but he'd taken what she'd so freely given and moulded it into something unfamiliar, something for which she had no name.

He'd been… he'd been so…

Briseis felt her thoughts stagger.

She had no comparison for it, not even in herself. He had given her something she had never believed she would feel: in those moments when he had been with her, Briseis had forgotten everything else, even the pain. Each time he had touched her, it had been perfection. And even though all you could expect out of perfection were tiny little moments of it, it had happened last night: smooth moments, like tiny pearls on a string, wrapped together, apart from everything else, wrapped in their own flawlessness, living off it. Each instant with him lived on its own of a light so sweet that Briseis did not want to pollute them in any way by trying to understand them.

That very action – rationalising them - would bring them into reality, would make them part of this world and Briseis would rather not do that. She'd rather keep those moments in a world apart, where they could exists and be pure, the way she wanted them to. In this world, they would have to be moments between a Greek soldier and a fallen Trojan priestess, moments of betrayal either from one side or the other. In this world, those moments would have been nothing more than what habitually happened between a master and his slave…

But alone, in their own perfect existence they could be something beautiful, something she could treasure. She could do that, pretend that this tent was a world apart from everything else, from life itself. In that fantastic realm, beautiful things could exists without anyone's permission or blessing. There, wrapped and protected, affection did not need names. She could wrap it up and hide it inside her, revisit it sometimes, perhaps between sleep and awakening, when it would not hurt to feel again…

But out of that real, in the real world that morning had brought, if Briseis were to think of those moments only hours before, she would think it sad that the only man who had ever made her know what it meant to desire as a woman would was her captor, and probably didn't even think of her as more than a toy.

The tiny smile of her face was wistful: this was just one more thing that really didn't matter… so she did not think on it anymore. Briseis found the blue dress and put it on. She smoothed her hands down the soft cotton.

_Nothing matters here, _she told herself again. Repeated it and willed it to be true.

_Here is nowhere…_

Briseis straightened her spine, composed her face and combed her fingers through her curls to try to tame them (her maidens had always had trouble smoothing down those curls. _He_ liked to tangle his hands in them…). She had promised the master healer that she would pulverise all of the plant roots today and she did not want to disappoint. But before she exited in the sun she had to practice walking until she was able to do it without feeling any discomfort.

Briseis almost laughed. How many surprises did she still have in her?

"What are you doing?"

Briseis turned so fast that her feet caught in the sand and she almost fell, but she caught her balance in time. His question had been softly spoken, not meaning to startle her, but then again it had not been his fault that she had been so distracted. (Or perhaps it had been, depending on how one chose to look at it.) He was casually leaning against the tent's entrance, arms crossed over his chest and looking at her with mild curiosity. Stepping into his tent to find her walking in wide circles with her hands spread out at the sides as if to keep balance must have been a strange sight.

(and Briseis denied herself any emotions in regard to seeing him again. She knew she was being childish, as if simply closing her eyes at them would make all the bad things go away… she was not a child, no. At this point, she was simply desperate for at least some measure of control over her own existence)

"I'm walking." Briseis answered simply, not answering at all, as if what she was doing was the most natural thing on earth and he was coarse for asking.

"Patrocles seems to be under the impression that you promised to watch him train today."

She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering if he was callous or simply dull in the mind. Perhaps it was both, she thought snippily, turning the other way so that she might hide her expression.

"I did and I will see your cousin shortly." Briseis murmured, feeing her cheeks heat and continuing her careful steps.

She never saw the understanding dawn in his eyes and the way his face slackened for a moment, in surprise before he gathered himself and rolled his eyes at her almost childish behaviour. The second she came within his reach, Achilles put one arm under her knees and the other around her middle and lifted her. Briseis didn't struggle, but she did yelp.

His skin under her right palm felt hot to the touch, as if he had a fever. But it seemed more likely that she was the one with the heightened perceptions.

"You should have been taught better than to try and walk the discomfort off. It doesn't work that way." he said as put her down on the furs that she'd slept on for days. He sat himself close to her… very close. Still, it was all Briseis could do not to roll her eyes at him and not point out that she had been too young before to be taught such things and that when her time to be taught had come, she had already chosen to be a servant of Apollo…

He sat there with her, watching her as she scrambled for a comfortable way to sit and then finally decided to gather her limbs and sit cross-legged.

"What?" She finally asked, narrowing her eyes at him, not being able to stand the silence any longer. His smile grew.

"You're very shy this morning."

"And you're as callous as always." She snapped back, hesitation forgotten. His smile stretched wider and he came closer, his hand coming to her face to push away the curls, a gesture that to her was almost an invitation – though Briseis could not quite be sure into what he was inviting her…

She did not even realize that she was leaning against his palm infinitesimally. His eyes were so soft as he took her in, as if he was trying to read into her the same way she seemed to try read into him. And just that simply, he made all that sadness that clung to her fall away. She was in her dreamland again. She was free to feel, because as soon as he'd go, she would step into reality and leave her feelings behind…

_It's alright to feel. If you can wrap him up and close him away it won't really hurt afterwards._

Or at least so she convinced herself to think.

"I cannot give you an answer if I don't know the question." He said gently, leaning forward so close that they were mere inches apart. He was looking at her so closely that she should have felt uncomfortable… but she did not. There was a strange measure of precarious trust she held towards him.

He finally trusted him not to hurt her – at least not in the physical way.

But this time, she did not understand his meaning.

"I did not ask anything."

"No, but your eyes are so full of questions. What is it that you want to know?"

The way she looked down in her lap told him more than she could ever have. She did have questions and she did not want to ask them. She did not even want to be caught having them, which was strange. Before, when he was nothing but a brute and an enemy, when for all she knew he could have killed her for the wrong look, she had been determined to tell him _exactly_ what was on her mind. She'd been bold and fierce, never even made the smallest reservation. Now, when she surely knew that he would never harm a hair on her head, she hesitated. She hid.

But not for long though. Her eyes came back to his and this time there was even a hint of humour there, though for some reason it tasted sour, as if she was not opening up but hiding behind that strange expression.

"The things I was thinking of would bore you. I doubt you would have an interest for them."

He cocked an eyebrow.

"Perhaps we should test your knowledge of me, if you think it so wide and vast. Go on, you have my leave to bore me."

She narrowed her eyes at him, knowing irony when it was thrown at her and not appreciating him in the least for it… but then she rolled her eyes and the faintest smile curled one corner of her soft mouth… and just then, he understood what was so different about her now:

She did not know how _not_ to be his enemy.

She did not know how to pace herself around him now, because he was not her enemy anymore, but still she had no idea what he was and how to be around him. As her enemy, even though very much dangerous, he had been predictable (and she had not shied from pricking him, not even in the face of violence). She had known what to expect – or at least she'd though she did – and had acted in the manner most befitting her judgement.

Now that he had proven not to be the man she had thought him to be… she was lost. She did not know what to expect from him. Did not know how to be close to him, the way it would be easier for her perhaps, if he were not Greek and she was not a captive in his camp.

_Captive…_

It sounded a strange word to him now, it fit her ill, like a robe too lose.

"If you must know… I was think of how little I know of you. Of your life, who you are. Why you are the way you are."

Briseis did not know what to expect from him as she spoke her mind and decided in that moment she would stop caring about that as well. What was supposed to happen would happen, and she did not want to keep measuring herself as if she was walking on glass – it was tiring. She knew he would not act unkindly and that was baffling in itself. Achilles was a man capable of kindness, much deeper kindness than men she'd known her whole life really. Men that did not have his kind of reputation for being soulless.

Barely a fortnight with him and life and the people in it had become so much more complicated.

"And why do you want to know that? It is fundamentally trivial why I am the way I am. What matters is who I am today, not who I was another day when you did not know me."

She eyed him thoughtfully, brown eyes fixed on his, wheels inside that pretty head turning.

"Perhaps…" She whispered as she took his hand in hers and studied his palm. When her eyes met his again, they were firm and he could almost feel the strength of the argument in them. She knew exactly where she was going with the words she had not even spoken yet.

She was like that, he had noticed: thinking three steps ahead. She would have made a good strategist.

"Do you believe in destiny Achilles?"

The question caught him unaware, perhaps because it was so close to his thoughts of late. He stayed a few moments, thinking.

"I have never liked the idea of not being in control of my own existence."

Her smile was soft, as if she understood his meaning perfectly.

"That is not an answer… but it's the point exactly, isn't it." She tilted her head a little, looking _at_ him and _through_ him at the same time, trying so very hard to see him. "And it's why, I think, you speak with such distain of the gods. You like to think that everything begins with a choice that is only yours to make."

She did not say so, but her eyes seemed to ask: '_am I wrong_?', so Achilles nodded imperceptibly, affirming her words and at the same time edging her to go on.

"But how can you make a choice, how can that choice truly be yours if you don't know yourself? And how can you know yourself if you do not understand what has made you the way you are?"

She traced the veins of his hand as she spoke, and the feather light touches were endearing and distracting – but what she was speaking of was also very interesting.

"I disagree. Everything that has made me the way I am is part of me, whether I know it or not does not matter. I know my own self without needing to read myself like a tome. I have complete possession of my mind and heart even when I cannot understand the reasons for it. It's the same with my body: I am still alive even when I am asleep. My heart still beats, my mind still welcomes dreams. Life does not stop at the understanding of man. It's farther, stretches wider. It is so with man himself."

She looked at him for a long moment after that, and there was something in her eyes, some kind of fascination that he had not seen there before. It was strange indeed that someone should look at him that way because of the words he spoke. Cunning games had always been Odysseus' forte, sweet words for the ears of the young girls were his cousins' favourite playtime and he was so very good at them. Achilles was not known for philosophy… but then again, that was because nobody had truly had the pleasure of getting him to speak more than three sentences in a row.

Unlike most men, he stayed silent when he had nothing to say: one of the very first lessons his father had taught him and one he had never forgotten.

"That sounds very reasonable." Briseis said slowly, as if trying the words on for fitting. "… And if one were to think that way, then the consequence is that no matter what we do, we are still the fools of what we do not know. That knowing the reason _why - _whythings happen, why we act the way we do - does not make the least bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. Our lives are going to pan out the same way and our destinies still swallow us no matter what…"

Achilles frowned as she kept talking, not because of what she was saying, but because of the look on her face when she said it. It was as if a darkness had come over her, as if there was something shadowing her thoughts that he could not see.

"Is that what you mean? Or did my reasoning deviate from yours?" She asked him suddenly, looking at him again and for the first time in his life, he did not know what to say. The trail he had led her down on seemed to hurt her in a way he could not understand. But she had asked for his thoughts and, not knowing why she was suddenly so grim, he decided to tell her the truth of his mind – the only one he could give.

"I think that the word 'destiny' is just another word for a life yet unlived. It's easier to say a destiny is woven for all of us than to admit to the fear that grips mens hearts in the face of the vastness of eternety. I feel I make my own destiny, it comes to me in the form of choices I make."

But she frowned, as if she did not understand… or disagreed.

"How is it a choice when you only have one path to walk on? Is it really your choise if it has been preordained you will make it, your path if the gods set you up so you could walk it?"

Her words seemed to irritate him and Briseis had the strange feeling that he had thought this over more times than she first imagined and that her line of reasoning was perhaps entirely contrary to the one he chose to adopt.

"That line of thinking is circulat. I know only what i know. And i know that even in battle, you can chose to fight or to run. You can chose to speak or to be quiet. And even though every choice is dictated by the nature of the man that makes it - and is therefore in some measure predictable, as is the path of said man's life – everything always begins with choice, as you well said."

"And yet here I am…" She whispered, and it was clear to him that those words were not meant for him, but he heard them just the same. And he would have liked to say that he was not hurt by her words, only angry at her ungratefulness for the kindness shown to him… but something held him back. The truth was too plain to ignore. It was still etched on the cuts on her face, on the bruises on her body, the yellow marks where rough hands had hit and grabbed.

But still he asked her… even though it did not really sound like a question. He spoke so slowly, so low, that Achilles had no idea what he had _wanted_ to say – because what he ended up saying was nothing like he had heart it in his head.

"Is that so bad, being here with me?"

Her eyes snapped to him, wide and startled and swirling with something undefined. There was affection there, and though it was guarded she did not keep the truth of it from him. And he knew that the core of her was true, because where his fingers were on her pulse, he felt her heartbeat speed up, just as her eyes heated.

"No." She said softly, though fixing her eyes not on his, not somewhere on his shoulder, hoping he understood her meaning. (and she _was_ shocked at the words that came out of her mouth – because of the truth of them)

"No, being with you is not bad at all."

He comprehended the meaning of her words instantly, the words settling inside him, (where that truth he'd bound underneath his ribs pulsed softly) while all the _other_ words, those unsaid, fell around the two of them like rain. The evidence of words unspoken was between them and the reality of it all around them, in his very being here, in Trojan shores where he did not belong.

Being with him was not bad, no; but being _here_…

That, he knew was another matter.

He brushed her hair away from her face (ever so radical it was, spirited, like the head of the girl it grew on!) She was so calm, so composed as she followed his movements. But her eyes were too alive to learn the art of deceit. They betrayed her in the purest way, ironically bringing her feelings more sharply in relief in the face of her utter stillness.

"We had a very poor introduction you and I." He said to her and the smile that curved her lips was amused, even though the melancholy had not drained from her eyes.

"I think you would have liked me better had you known me in a different time, in a different place."

But her hand came up to wrap around his wrist and she turned her head, to brush her lips against his palm, eyes lowering in a manner he'd learned to understand preceded her most daring statements.

She drew into herself to gather her thoughts. She did not want to be influenced, she wanted her words clear precise and her own and Achilles knew he'd been right in his first instinct about her: this was not a human being that could be robbed of anything. Her most preserved possessing lied farther away than any man could ever reach: deep in the recess off her mind, she treasured her soul.

"Is it strange that I like knowing you here?"

Yes, it was. He did not say so, but his confusion showed, because she hastily explained.

"In what other circumstances would we be able to know each other as we do now? Had we met within proper customs, you would have thought me an airhead girl with not two thoughts of value to rub together, because of course, I would not have had any chance to speak to you to prove you different… while I would have thought you no better than the countless men I'd been presented to before, who eyed me as one does a possession one considers being at the market and would have despised you for it. And neither would have been the wiser."

His crooked smile gave way to words that she knew were going to be on some level provocative (she was already able to read him)

"I seem to remember you giving certain preconceived notions about me here too. I found a way to change your mind even under the pressures of war. I think I would have been able to do so in more civil circumstances."

"You have you fair share of prejudices too, Achilles who has never in his 28 years met a noblewoman able to doing anything useful."

He had the urge to laugh as his words were repeated back to him, her tone deepening to imitate him.

"Those are fact I have unveiled by careful exploration." He said smirking; she frowned and threw a grape at him.

(which e deftly caught, brought to his mouth to bite off one half and offered her the other… her hesitation lasted only a fraction, before she leaned in and took the grape from his fingers with her lips. The urge to have her then was so arresting, than for a moment he was deaf even to the words she spoke next.)

"Besides, mine weren't exactly '_preconceived notions'_: I was reacting under extreme circumstances. Fear and reality shaped those notions."

He though back at the first time he'd laid his eyes on her.

"I don't remember the fear as well as I remember defiance and a fiery wish for death, the first time you saw me."

Briseis was taken aback. He'd seen right through her…

"I wanted you to kill me in anger before you had the chance to do anything else to me." She murmured without looking at him. The silence didn't stretch long, but it was suddenly heavy. She knew it was his thoughts that made it so, because of all the ways he knew she had been wrong.

Blood-soaked thoughts had a way of stiffening a conversation, Briseis noted almost absentmindedly.

"Shows how little you know about war and then men in it, Briseis."

But his tone was so mild that the tension broke instantly. And thought could not read his expression as he played with her hair twirling it around his fingers, feeling it's texture, his hands were gentle, mindful.

"The kind of man you feared would have killed you a thousand ways before granting you your wish. A lesser man would have done it out of spite."

She could not help but think of Agamemnon, those dreadful hours spent in his watch, under his roof… and then with his men.

Oh yes, she had been educated by war in the ways of men.

She looked at him, at the pale bronze of his skin, taught and smooth, the gold of his hair, the depth of his eyes and usually hard line of his lips (but not now!) No, not all men turned to savages when you put a sword in their hand.

"A lesser man would have." She said so softly that she thought he might not have heard, but his eyes were quick to find her face, to read her. She wanted in that moment to go closer to him, to touch his face and run a hand though his hair… gather those pearls of perfection against her and feel them again, just for a little while. He seemed to sense of very mood, and it changed his as if she'd commanded him (such a ludicrous notion!) but before she could think more on it, a strange rumble startled her out of the moment (it broke so easily she could almost despair. This world she'd created out of nothing but her own desire to preserve herself was as fragile as castles of sand)

"What is this noise?" She asked looking around the tent and reminding him of a startled bird.

"That is the sound of about 50000 men marching to your city's steps." He said grimly and her eyes widened. Her whole frame went rigid as if she was carved out of stone.

Reality had a peculiar way of making itself know. That fragile bubble Briseis had created shattered under those 50000 thousand pairs of feet that crushed Troy's dirt this morning. She thought of the walls of her city, of her cousins and of Hector… and of the scorched earth of Troy that would soon feed with the blood of its enemies, and its sons.

Sometimes, Briseis thought, there is no cavity deep enough to hide the hurt, not even in a heart as big as hers.


End file.
